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University of Illinois Library 


M32 


Uneducating Mary 


BY 
KATHLEEN NORRIS 


GARDEN CITY | NEW YORK 
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. 
3924 


~~ . 


Ay? part i 


UNEDUCATING MARY 


CHAPTER I 


OF ALL the homes in New Troy the little 

house of the young Billy Constables in 
Cathedral Avenue was generally conceded to 
be the most attractive. Everyone said that 
it was just like Mary Throckmorton’s luck to 


find such a house for sale when she was ready 


4 


to get married and begin housekeeping. 
Mary, demurely announcing the engagement 
that was the social event of that particular 
winter, also announced her choice of a place 
of residence. She had been a fortunate child, 
a fortunate girl, a much envied and admired 
young woman. Now she was to marry the 
richest as well as one of the nicest of the town’s 
young men and live in the most delightful 
house New Troy could boast. The girls sighed 
while they laughed, at the hopelessness of ever 
keeping up with Mary Throckmorton. 

~ The Cathedral Avenue house stood on a 

I 


ea UNEDUCATING MARY 


wide quiet street, tree-bordered, uncommercial, 
aristocratic; the “‘court end”’ of the little 
city. Only two blocks away was the best 
shopping district, the library, and the little 
brick building that housed the woman’s club. 
A narrow strip of lawn behind the house ran 
down to the river; Mary had no front garden, 
but here were roses and fruit trees and a lat- 
ticed summerhouse,, where the gracious mis- 
tress of the house loved to serve tea on summer 
afternoons. 

The house was brick, narrow and quaint in 
design. There was a brass knocker on the 
paneled street door; arriving guests stepped 
straight into a tiny square reception-room 
facing, across a wide park hall, the pretty ~ 
dining-room, where French windows opened 
on the lawn and river. But the drawing- 
room itself was reached by a flight of polished 
wide stairs, and was at the back of the house 
over the dining-room. 

In this handsome drawing-room, on a cer- 
tain April afternoon about five years after 
Mary’s marriage, two women were waiting 
for her. One was her mother, a sweet-faced, 
middle-aged woman, into whose plump, hand- 
some face mirth had put more lines than age, 


UNEDUCATING MARY 3 
and the other was Amy Throckmorton, 
Mary’s younger sister. Mrs. Throckmorton 
was placidly reading a magazine while she 
- waited; Amy, restless and interested, ranged 
about the room, trying the little grand piano, 
glancing at the books that filled the low ma- 
hogany cases, studying here a framed photo- 
graph and there a bit of Japanese etching, and 
finally opening one of the wide casement win- 
dows for a view of the river under the fresh 
green of birch and willow trees Amy was a 
pretty girl, just two-and-twenty, and ex- 
tremely attractive and deservedly popular. 

“T wish we d telephoned, Mother, as you sug- 
gested,” said Amy presently, coming from the 
window to take one arm of her mother’s chair. 

“Why, I don’t mind waiting,” Mrs. Throck- _ 
morton answered, closing her magazine and 
taking off her gold-rimmed glasses. 7 

“Promise me, Mother, you won’t say a word 
until I do!” 

“Oh, no. I sha’n’t,” Mrs. Throckmorton 
agreed. Then, seeing a maid cross the hall a 
moment later she called, “Oh, Milly!” 

Milly, a nice little maid, came into the 
drawing-room. 

“Milly,” said Mrs. (Throckmorton, “won’t 


(| (4 UNEDUCATING MARY 
| you run upstairs, and see if the baby’s awake? 
He was asleep when we got here, but that’s - 


half an hour ago, and I asked Alice not to take 
him out until we saw him!” 

“Oh, I think she’s taken him out,” Milly 
said, shaking her head, smiling but regretful. 
“They came down past the kitchen about 
twenty minutes ago!”’ 

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Throckmorton exclaimed, 
with all a grandmother’s whimsical dismay. 
“Tsn’t that a shame, Amy!” Mrs. Throck- 
morton mourned. “‘ Now I’m afraid we won't 
see him! I certainly thought Alice under- 
stood me——”’ 

“She understood you, all right,” Amy 
drawled, when Milly was gone. 


“Why, my dear, she can’t have! Or she | 


wouldn’t have taken him out!” 

“My dear Mother, if you think a trained 
English nurse will rake aide any one 
but her mistress 

“It wasn’t an order, Amy dear! I simply 
asked | 

“I know you simply asked, darling!” Amy 
laughed. “But Alice loathes us.” 

“Amy dear, how can you say that?” 

“She loathes us because we don’t take her 


r RY. t's y - 
AE en aA 


UNEDUCATING MARY = 5 

- seriously,” Amy pursued cheerfully. “Mary 
does, you know. Mary calls her ‘Nurse,’ and 
sees that she gets her tea every afternoon!”’ 

“Here’s Mary now!” exclaimed Amy. “I 
heard the door!” 

Here was Mary, sure enough, a woman in 
the full tide of her unusual beauty, at twenty- 
eight, tall, dignified, and graceful, slowly 
mounting the wide stairway from the lower 
hall. Under the curve of her soft, rough little 
straw hat, her hair, lusterless as black smoke, 
escaped to frame her lovely and serious face. 
Her eyes were wide and blue, a soft dark blue 
that also had some quality in common with 
smoke, her mouth was both sweet and strong, 
her skin had the clear palior of the brunette. 
The lines of her sensible little tailor-made suit 
were full of distinction, the skirt short enough 
to show silk-stockinged ankles and the most. 
practical of square-toed, little low shoes 
finished with wide silk bows. It was a most 
delectable costume. 

She was glancing at letters as she came up, 
and so was at the very drawing-room door be-_ 
fore she heard her mother’s eager ‘‘ Mary!” 
Then her face brightened with pleasure and 
surprise, and in an instant she was in the older 


6 ~ UNEDUCATING MARY 
woman’s arms. Seeing them, an onlooker 
might not have suspected that mother and 
daughters saw each other daily, sometimes 
twice a day. 

“Mother!” Marysaid. “And Amy! You 
darlings! But why didn’t you telephone? 
I was at the Club for the pure milk meeting, 
and Katharine carried me off for luncheon. 
We had about a hundred people there.” 

“And what did you do, dear?” asked the 
mother with fond pride. 

“Oh, not very much to-day!’”? Mrs. Con- 
stable gave her hat and gloves to the waiting 
Milly and ran her fingers through her smoky 
hair as she sat down. “I merely introduced 
the speakers, and gave a little sketch of what 
we have done already. But to-morrow I 
dread! Visitors’ Day at the Club. and I am 
the speaker of the day.” 

“What are you going to talk about?” Aw 
asked. | 

“Oh, efficiency—efficiency in general. 
Really it’s a sort of review of lots of things, 
domestic and general,’ Mary answered, with 
a laugh and a sigh. ‘‘Health and pure food 
and child-culture, and factory regulations, and 


{?? 


school children’s lunches—that sort of thing! 


3 
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Dare Se ae eh Jill hy ee gees 
DAE sue eM Sl ha fers i 
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UNEDUCATING MARY 7 
“And the tango and eugenics?’’ suggested 
Amy ; 


“No!” Mary laughed. “Somehow I’ve 
skipped those. Well, Mother dear, what’s 


new at home? And how’s my dad? And did 


you two get to see Anna Lou?”’ : 
“We're just from there,’ Amy answered. 


XS 


“Poor old girl, she d-dn’t seem very gay, did — 


she, Mother?” 


“Well, I suppose you could hardly expect 
her to be gay, Amy,’ Mrs. Throckmorton 


said in mild reproach. Anna Lou was Mrs. 
Penne, her oldest daughter, recently widowed 
and the mother of two small girls. Mrs. 


Penne was now engaged in the dreary business. 


of dismantling the pretty home in which she 
had spent the last few years*of her happy 


married life. Mrs. Throckmorton sighed as 


she thought of her. 

“She’s as brave as she can be, Mary,” she 
said. “Of course nothing’s sett.ed yet; she’s 
coming to Daddy and me to-morrow, until 
she can look around. Poor Dad! he is just 


longing to offer her a home with us as long as 


she'll stay; but we feel that whatever she 
wants to do is the best thing for her now!”’ 
‘I don’t suppose it will be anything but very 


Gs - UNEDUCATING MARY 

sad for her, anyway,’ Mary murmured sym- 
pathetically. “Dear old Anna Lou, it’s too 
hard! I saw her yesterday. I wish we had 
room to put them up here for a little visit until 
Anna sees her way clear.” 

“T wish Anna was such a manager as. you 
are, Mary,’ Mrs. Throckmorton said fondly, 
“then I shouldn’t feel so worried about her. 
But she’s just like a child, really, for all her 
experience.’ 

“Well, I’ve been very fortunate, Mother 
dear,’ Mary said, smiling a little sadly. “I 
had my four years’ training; you know Anna 
Lou was only nineteen when she married! 
She never really had a chance to ‘find herself,’ 
as Professor Barnes used to call it. What is 
she planning, Mother?” 

“Well, she'll be with Daddy and me for 
a while, I suppose,’ Mrs. ‘Throckmorton sug- 
gested, a little uncertainly. | 

“T know, Mother dear, but that’s quite a 
strain for you both, with Lizabeth and Nancy 
romping all over everything, and Dad so 
nervous when he has his headaches!’* Mary 
said. “It never works well, this doubling up 
of families!”’ A sudden idea occurred to her. 
“But there’s Dick’s brother, Laurence Penne,” 


Be by ve Gaal SA Maly ae a 


~UNEDUCATING MARY ey 
she said. “Surely if Dad helps a little, and he 
helps a little, and I do, we can tide her over 
until she gets on her feet!”’ 

“Laurence Penne is engaged,’ Amy mur- 
mured. her cheeks crimson, her head hanging, 
a dimple showing at the corner of her mouth. | 

Mary turned to look at her, the color creep- 
ing slowly into her own face. 

“Amy ‘Throckmorton!’ she _ exclaimed, 
startled eyes upon her sister. “Amy! You 
—why, you darling, you don’t mean it!”’ 

Before the sentence was ended the sisters 
were in each other’s arms, laughing and talk- 
ing wildly and perhaps not far from tears. 

“Larry Penne!’’ exclaimed Mary, when the 
first excitement was over. “Well, won't | 
people be amazed, you secretive woman, you! 
Tell me all about it, and don’t skip anything. 
I never was so much surprised in my life!’ 

Under this flattering pressure Amy plunged 
into the story: how she had hated Larry Penne | 
when she first knew him; how she had met 
him at the Laberees’ picnic and liked him much 
better; and how his “darlingness”’ to Anna 
Lou at the time of her sorrow had completed 
his conquest. 

“We've seen each other every day for six 


10 UNEDUCATING MARY 


weeks, at Anna Lou’s,” Amy finished eagerly. 
“And really, Mary, he grows nicer all the 
time! And we're going to be married in June, 
aren’t we, Mother?” : 
“Oh, I don’t know—you'll have to settle 
that with Dad!” Mrs. Throckmorton pro- 
tested. : 
“Amy, you won't be married on that 
salary!” Mary, from whom no detail had 
been kept, said hastily. 
“Eighteen hundred? I don’t see why I 
shouldn’t!’’ Amy protested. | 
Mary looked at her mother, a look of indul- 
gence tempered with amusement. | 
“Why, darling, what do you know about 
housekeeping?’’ asked the older sister. 
“PU learn,” Amy said stoutly.. “1 Kept 
house for Mother last summer!” ; 
“Learn!’? Mary laughed kindly. “Do you 
realize that domestic science is one of the very 
hardest things in the world to master?” she 
asked. “It’s frightful, the girls simply break . 
down under it. Do you know what a budget 
is, Goosie? Do you know what hypophos- 
phites are, and what sugar does, and what 
starch does? And that’s only the very be- 
ginning of it all!” 


UNEDUCATING MARY tt 


“Mother never went to college,’ Amy said, 
with a doubtful glance at her mother. 

“No,” said Mrs. Throckmorton, with a 
laugh and a sigh, “and I am afraid your poor 
father paid heavily for it! [I am ashamed to 
think of the meals I used to serve that poor, 
patient man! We had no delicatessen store 
here in those days, and I had only one ignorant 
little maid.” 

““Now, you see, I had my books and my 
lecture notes,’ said Mary, “and so I simply ~ 
wrote out menus and gave them to Louise be- 
fore we went on our honeymoon, even! It’s 
all so easy when you once know how!”’ 

“Easy for you,” smiled her mother; “but 
you always took to books naturally, Mary. 
Neither Amy nor Anna Lou is like you in 
that.” 

“Oh, Mother, any one could doit!’ Mary 
answered with her quick, bright flush. | 

“Any one could manage a house with one 
hand and every club in town with the other, 
and anybody’s baby could be as carefully 
watched and taken care of as Anthony, I 
suppose!’’ Amy said affectionately. “Only, 
they don’t. Don’t be affected, Mary, you 
know you're a wonder!” | 


12 UNEDUCATING MARY. 


“T am not!" Mary protested, addiae Fo a 
mediately in a tone of concern, “Not going, 
Amy?’’ | 

“T’m going to meet Larry at the office and 
walk out to Anna Lou’s,” Amy explained. 

When Mary came Boek into the drawing- 
room after going to the stairs with Amy, her 
face was rather grave. She rang for tea and 
then sat down on a low stool at her mother’s 
feet with that suggestion of little-girl days 
that always went straight to Mrs. Throck- 
morton’s tender heart. 

“Now, tell me honestly, Mother, are you 
pleased?’? asked Marty. “Of course it’s not 
my affair, and I’m not going to say one word; 
but Larry Penne must be thirty, isn’t he? 
And eighteen hundred—you know that isn’t 
really enough! Of course he’s the dearest, 
sweetest fellow in the world; but I did think he 
would be a sort of comfort and stand-by to 
poor Anna Lou . 

“Well, I think they have some plan of co- 
operating,’ Mrs. Throckmorton began uncer- 
tainly. “I don’t mean exactly living to- 
gether,’ she added hastily as Mary put her 
lips together and began slowly to shake her 
‘head. “But, you see, Amy feels she'll have to 


4 


UNEDUCATING MARY ~— 13 

“pay at least twenty dollars for a house, and she ~ 
-  plans—of course, nothing is settled—to take 
one of those big houses down by the bridge, 
it’s quite pretty and countrylike there, and 
then Anna Lou and the girls can have a floor 
to themselves and Amy won’t beso lonely while 
Larry’s away.” 

Mary did not answer for perhaps two min- 
utes. She went to seat herself beside the 
appetizing tea tray, and poured her mother’s 
tea very carefully. Then she said: 

“Mother, Amy won’t be so mad as to bury 
herself down there at Bridge Street! And 
even if she did, you know how bad it is for 
young married people to have any one else in © 
the house with them! Do, do try, before they | 
go any further, to make them see what a 
foolish thing that is to do! Why, there are 
perfectly charming apartments being built, 
tight here on Forest Place, two blocks away! 
Do persuade her to wait, and at least see 
them!’ 

“But Amy isn’t like you, dear,’ the mother 


argued mildly. “She will have no servant; 


she really might get lonely with the care of her 
own house and kitchen. Amy doesn’t care 
much for books, Mary, she doesn’t like clubs 


“14 UNEDUCATING MARY _ 


and civic reform—and—pure milk crusades, 
as you do.” 

“Well, then, she ought to, Mother,’ Mary 
answered, with her grave smile. “She owes 
it to Larry, and she owes it to herself, not to 
get absolutely into a rut! If ethics teach you 
anything in the world, they teach you that! . 
Women have got to take their place in the 
world and stand on their own feet, in these 
days, whether they like it or not!” Mary 
pursued earnestly. “‘Why, I wouldn’t dare 
to drop out of the current, my responsibility 
as a reasonable human being is too great! I 
have my part to play, my work todo. I must 
know every detail of my household, must know 
the character and capabilities of my maids; I 
must watch every phase, mental, moral, and 
physical, of my child’s growth; I must know 
what other women are doing in the world, 
what is new in science and art and literature.” 

“Yes, that’s very. true, of course,’ IVire, 
Throckmorton said, more appreciative of 
Mary’s glowing beauty than of her words. 
~ “That’s really a very fine thought. But I 
suppose I feel some sympathy for Amy,” she 
presently added, “because of course I never 
had an opportunity to go to college, and no- 


UNEDUCATING MARY sie 
body ever made any of this—this importance 
—you were speaking about, clear to me.” 

“No, if Amy really cares for Larry Penne,” 
Mary went on, thoughtfully, “we must try 
to give her the best possible start. I'll say 
something myself to Anna Lou; that is, [ll 
try to suggest some arrangement that will 
keep the two establishments separate, for the 
present at least. Anna has a small capital, of 
course; Dad might send something, I sup- 
pose; and I can’’—Mary concentrated her fine 
brows for a second’s thought—“I can promise 
at least three hundred a year,’ she added. 
** Perhaps even more than that.’ 

“Three hundred! Dearie, that would pay 
her rent,’ Mrs. Throckmorton exclaimed 
eagerly. “But can you spare it, dear?’ she 
asked. 

“I can spare it, inasmuch as I only have to 
ask my dear beau-papa for it, at one whack!” 
laughed Mary. “You can easily see that I 
won't go hungry for that little piece of gener- 
osity!”’ She set down her teacup. Mrs. 
Throckmorton was genuinely impressed by 
the magnitude of the offer, but Mary dis- 
missed the subject merrily. ‘‘Come into my 
room, darling,” she said. ‘‘ We’ve five people 


16. UNEDUCATING MARY 


coming to-night, and I want to put some lace © 
on my black satin.” 

“Five people!” ejaculated the older matron, 
following her daughter into the exquisitely 
appointed bedroom that was just across the — 
hall from the drawing-room. “Five! Dear 
me, I used to be utterly worn out and ex- 
hausted if ever I tried to manage four, much 
less seven, for dinner!” 

“Louise is a treasure,’’ said Mary, opening a 
casement window that gave a view of the 
pleasant street, deserted in the quiet spring 
afternoon. ‘‘She likes company.” 

Mary was a constant source of delight to her 
quiet mother. She had been pretty, good, 
clever, from her very babyhood; now it filled 
her mother’s heart with gratitude and satis- 
faction to find her rounding her life out so 
perfectly—a rich man’s wife, a devoted 
mother, the most admired and envied member 
of New Troy’s nicest set. Anna Lou had 
married a good man, if a not very brilliant or 
successful one, and Amy was to find a good 
steady husband, too, and Rodney, the one 
son, still unmarried, promised to be a credit to 
his devoted family. | 

The older woman found a strange charm in 


\ 


UNEDUCATING MARY 17 


every detail of her fortunate daughter’s life; _ 
she found the atmosphere of the Cathedral — 


Avenue home both soothing and fascinating. 
Her own early married years had been hard 
and busy and unpicturesque; she had had 
no time for the scientific study of house- 
keeping. Her healthy, irrepressible children, 
her untrained servants, her tired, devoted 
husband, had absorbed every ounce of energy | 
soul and body possessed. 

Her girls had grown up capable, quick of 
speech and action, affectionate and happy. 
Anna Lou was just married when Mary had 
begun to talk of college. College! No plan 
proposed by the girl of to-day, however daring, 
could sound as strange to parental ears as the 
word “college’’? on their daughter’s lips 
sounded to Daniel and Ellen Throckmorton. 
Even Rodney had shown no desire for college. 

Mary spent four years in college, and when 
she came home even the matrons of her 
mother’s age treated her with marked respect. 
She was more charming than ever, but there 
was a general feeling that no man alive would 
dare to ask this gifted and learned and poised 
young woman to share the common lot of — 
wives in New. Troy. 


Vas UNEDUCATING MARY 

And then Billy Constable came home from — 
college, and simple and unaffected and quiet 
as Billy was he nevertheless won the brilliant 
Mary in the course of a happy winter, and there 
were countless engagement cups and luncheons 
and dinners and “showers” for the young 
pair, and there were wedding presents such as 
New Troy had never seen before, and a 
wedding that was mentioned in social columns 
all over the state. Billy’s father, a nervous, 
eager, hard-working man of business, was de- 
voted to his daughter-in-law, and his wedding — 
present to the young couple had been the brick 
house in Cathedral Avenue, and, as Billy was 
the ‘‘Son,’’ of Constable and Son, the oldest 
brokerage house in New Troy, he had an in- 
come well fitted to the needs of the brick house. 

So for five happy years Mary had ruled the 
delightful little establishment, growing riper 
and more secure in her womanly charm year 
after year. Little Anthony came presently, to 
enjoy the old silver mug and darkened ma- 
hogany cradle that had been his father’s, and 
to fill the sunny nursery upstairs with his 
delicious little voice. Mrs. Throckmorton 
really felt nearer to Anna Lou’s romping, 
singham-clad little girls than she did to the 


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- UNEDUCATING MARY = 119” 
exquisitely guarded Anthony, for the little | 


boy was high-strung and delicate, and, so 
necessarily, ill-disciplined. 

She sat thinking contentedly of all these 
things as Mary finished her bit of sewing, 
called the confectioner by telephone to make 
sure of the ices for dinner, and telephoned 
also to some club-woman friend, with whom 
she held a long, and to her mother almost 
incomprehensible, “conversation, concerning 
some point of parliamentary law. 

“That was Edna Purcell,” said Mary as 
she hung up the receiver. “She’s here now 
visiting her brother, and just as much in- 
terested in the Club as ever!”’ 

Mrs. Throckmorton set her mouth primly, 
and fixed her eyes upon space. 

“I know you don’t like her, Mother,” Mary 
admitted. “Or, rather, I know you don’t 
like her divorcing Harry Purcell. But she 
really is a dear girl, and she really is devoted to 
her boy, too—talks about him all the time!”’ 

“What'd she give him up for, then?” de- 
manded Mrs. Throckmorton practically. 


“Why, Mother, her love for Freddy had ~ 


nothing to do with her leaving Harry!” Mary 
said, wide-eyed. 


20 UNEDUCATING MARY a. 

“T don’t see why it didn’t. If she loved her 
child, she ought to love his father. Harry 
Purcell isn’t to me an attractive fellow, but 
Edna married him. She didn’t have to marry 
him.” Mrs. Throckmorton shook her head, 
unconvinced. ““No—no—no!”’ she said 
firmly. 

Mary sat thoughtfully staring at her moth- 
ers face for a few moments. ‘Then she said 
patiently: 

“The situation had become simply unbear- 
able for her, Mother. She was slaving away 
the best years of her life. Edna was perfectly 
willing to do everything she could, but finally 
it seemed to occur to her forcibly that Harry 
wasn't going to do any better; that she never 
would have a maid, or live anywhere else than 
in that horrid little house, and it broke her 
heart. She had given up a handsome income 
to marry Harry Purcell; she was only too 
eager to go back to work, and have the family 
board. But no—he wouldn’t do that! Edna 
had to ask him for every cent she needed; it 
was too humiliating!” : 

“Humiliating! I never found it humiliat- 
ing to ask your father for money!’’ Mrs. 
Throckmorton exclaimed, with the flash of 


_ UNEDUCATING MARY ar 


——— 


anger that surprises even the mildest of women 
at this particular gibe. 

*“ Mother!—as if Dad wasn’t exceptional 
Mary said. “Anyway, Edna simply went 
away to her sister in Brooklyn. And there 
she got a fine position and a chance to develop 
herself along the natural lines. She’s doing 
wonderfully well.’’ 

“YT don’t know what you mean by natural 


1°? 


lines,’ Mrs. Throckmorton said disapprov- 


ingly. 

“I mean to develop her own soul, Mother,” 
Mary explained. “Isn’t that the highest, 
finest thing in life? If I am satisfied, if I am 
using my capabilities to the utmost, I am 
growing, andl amhappy. But if some cramp- 
ing, disagreeable element is eternally holding 
me back, if I am losing soul-tissue e 

“Soul-tissue!’’ interrupted her mother. 

“Why, Mother, you know hate and worry 
waste your spirit as much as illness and star- 
vation waste your body,” the daughter eluci- 
dated. “That’s an absolutely recognized 
Fach 


“Yes, but, Mary, surely we all have to do © 


things we don’t like in this world, and endure 
people with whom we have no sympathy! 


aoe. UNEDUCATING MARY 
Why, there was your father’s Aunt Lizzie, we — 
had her for three years Mrs. Throck- 
morton was beginning; but Mary interrupted. 

“Well, you ought not have had her, Mother. 
It was simply your generosity and decency! — 
I wouldn’t have had her! I wouldn't have 
any one. It’s wrong. It does you an ‘in- 
justice. No, dearest,’ Mary added, “there 
are psychological and ethical and biological 
reasons underlying these things—we used 
regularly to study them, you know—and when 
you understand those reasons you realize that 
the human family i 

“Edna Purcell doesn’t seem to have much 
regard for the human family, for all that she 
knows all about these things!’’ Mrs. Throck- 
morton suggested neatly. 

The two women were chatting comfortably 
half an hour later when the English nurse re- 
turned with Mary’s four-year-old boy. 

Usually little Anthony toiled up the stairs 
himself, shouting loudly for his mother. He 
was a masterful little fellow, and recognized 
no authority. But to-day something was 
wrong. Mrs. Throckmorton’s heart turned 
sick within her as she saw the limp little figure 
in the nurse’s arms, the fever-bright eyes and 


Ps iv ‘ , ; y y y ri 
uy? ft ‘ 7 , 
+ 
J 


_ burning face. She and Mary flew to meet | 
-child and attendant, the grandmother taking 
Anthony into her own arms while Mary in- 
terrogated the maid. 
. He had been a little queer when he wakened 
from his nap, said Alice, with an air at once 
respectful and self-righteous, but she had’ 
fancied that the air would restore him quite to 
the normal. However, he had been fretting 
and crying all the afternoon; wouldn’t play; 
wouldn’t walk; and she had presently noticed 
how hot his face was, and had brought him in. 
Mrs. Throckmorton sat back into her chair, 
the child in her arms, a thousand prayers 
struggling in her heart. But Mary was still 
her alert and capable self, although pale with 
the shock. In fifteen minutes the best “‘baby- 
doctor”’ in town was examining little Anthony, 
and the nursery, which was at the front of the 
house above Mary’s own room, had been 
turned into a sick-room. The child’s crib 
was moved, unnecessary things were swept 
out of sight, air and light were regulated, and 


Mary herself held the frightened baby during i 


the preliminary examination. 
“fA little fever, certainly nothing alarming,” 
said Doctor Hubbard. ““No supper, of course,’ 


en -UNEDUCATING MARY Ve 
_ Mary said intelligently. ‘Oh, no, Onine 
whatever,” the doctor agreed. Measles? Mary 
wondered. ‘‘Pos—sibly, possibly just a little 
teething or stomach trouble,” said the sooth- — 
ing physician. Mary asked as to the advisa- 
bility of getting a trained nurse. 

The doctor shook his clinic thermometer 
thoughtfully, bit his lip, and eyed the ceiling 
for a full minute. : 

“Ye—es, I think I would get a nurse,” he 
advised slowly. Mary telephoned at once, 
and before her mother, somewhat reassured, 
left the house, Miss Ashe was in full possession 
of the sick-room. 

“Now, don’t you worry, dearie, 
mother. ; 

“Oh, I sha’n’t!” Mary promised, with a 
kiss. “Well, yes, I suppose I shall!” she 
added, with a wistful little smile. “I wish 
all those people weren’t coming! But there 
doesn’t seem to be any reason for postponing 
the dinner. It isn’t as if we were going out; 
we will be right here. He’s way upstairs out 

of the noise, of course, and Miss Ashe doesn’t 
want any one in the room, anyway. He’s 
used to Miss Ashe, he likes her.” 

“You're a wonderful little mother,” said 


23 


said the 


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UNEDUCATING MARY ee. 
Mrs. Throckmorton. “I am always sofright- 
ened! Anthony looks better already. Good- 
night, dear!”’ 

“Good-night, Mother!” Mary said. She 
went upstairs again slowly, mounted the second 
flight to the child’s room. Everything here was 
orderly, serene, satisfactory. Anthony, worn 
out with his trying afternoon and the tears he 
had recently shed, was dozing uneasily. 

Miss Ashe smiled at Mary, and came out 
into the hall. 

“Still fever?’ asked the mother. The 
nurse shrugged lightly. 

“Fever in such a little child is nothing, Mrs. 
Constable. He'll probably have a restless 
night, but I think we will see immense im- 
provement in the morning.” 

“It’s the greatest comfort in the world for 
me to have you here,” Mary said, with a long 
sigh of relief. “‘I have guests coming, and it 
means so much to me to know that you are 
here and that you will call me at the slightest 
sign fl | 

“There won’t be a sign of anything!’’ the 
nurse assured her smilingly. She went back 
into the nursery, and Mary went down to her ; 


own room. 


26 UNEDUCATING MARY 


Six ovclock. and twilight in Cachet ee 


Avenue. Mary stood idly gazing out of the 
window for a moment and then drew the 
shades, lighted her room, and began slowly 
to dress for dinner, when her husband came in. 

Billy Constable did not knock at his wife’s 
door, as usual. To-day his honest round face 
was streaked with the grime and perspiration 
of the spring’s first heat, his hat was pushed 
to the back of his head, and his eyes were full 
of miserable concern. 

“Kid sick?” he asked, without prelimina- 
ries. 

Mary explained reassuringly, and sug- 
gested that he run upstairs and have a look at 
the baby for himself. : 

*“T’ve been up,” said Anthony’s father. He 
sank into a chair and stuck his feet out before 
him. “Gosh, I’m dead!” he said heavily. 

Mary did not speak, she even tried not to — 
eye him too severely. Of course he was tired, 
and Anthony was the apple of his eye; but 
every fibre of her being was uncomfortably 
aware of the sprawling form in the armchair, 
the perspiration-streaked face, the dusty shoes. | 
She hated the word “kid,” although she some- 
times used the term “kiddy” herself; she 


aa MP S35, oe Se 
= fete 
oe 


UNEDUCATING MARY = .27_—™ 


disapprovingly conscious of the fact that Billy 
had not greeted his wife politely, had not re- 
moved his hat, and was obviously forgetful for 
the moment of the fact that a dinner party 
was imminent. 

“ Always hated that dress,” was Billy’s next 
thoughtful contribution to the general con- 
versation as his eye fell on the waiting black 
gown. Mary felt asuddenrush of anger. No 
woman alive can be indifferent to such.a crit- 
icism, but it was in a very gentle voice that 
Mary presently said: 

“Billy, dear, have you forgotten that the 
Archers and Tom and the Pattersons are 
coming to-night ?”’ 

Billy’s suddenly raised face would have been 
comic, if it had not been so genuinely aghast. 

“Oh, gosh!” he said dismally. And then, 
in a puzzled tone, “But, look here, what a— 
what about the kid?”’ 

“Why, it seemed best to let things go on,” 
Mary said. ‘“He’s quiet, and as comfortable - 
as he can be, poor little chap!” 

“Yes, I guess you’re right,” Billy assented 
slowly. He yawned profoundly. “I’ve got 
to shave,” said he, on another yawn. | 


hated the exclamation “gosh,” and she was 


28 UNEDUCATING MARY | 


Mary‘again did not answer, and her husband 


pulled himself wearily out of his chair and 


dragged his way into the adjoining bedroom. 
Mary, hooking herself now into the sweeping 
lines of her black satin gown, frowned faintly 
at her own lovely vision in the glass. She was 
the type that clings desperately to domestic 
ideals; this scene was not ideal. She loved dig- 
nity, formality, what she described as “fine- 
ness’ in form and manner. And sometimes 
Billy failed her. 

Mary sighed, thinking about it. Billy was 
habitually disappointing in some ways. He 
was different, in a thousand subtle phases, 
from the gay, adoring, cheerful college gradu- 
ate who had wooed and won her more than 
five years ago. Or perhaps, Mary was honest 
enough to admit, she herself was growing be- 
yond Billy. Such uninspiring business routine 
as filled his hours in the offices of Constable 
and Son could surely do nothing toward ele- 
vating his ideals or developing the finer side 
of his nature. She had her books, her social 
work, her music, and her dreams. 

Jolly theatre parties or card parties with a 
chafing-dish supper to follow had been all 
very well for the first year or two of married 


UNEDUCATING MARY 29 
life. Now Mary consciously yearned for 
hospitality of a more significant nature. She 
enjoyed nothing in life so much as those occas- 
ions when her literary club entertained some 
distinguished writer or actress; nothing that 
came to her in her own home was so satisfying 
to Maryasto fill the gracious role that fell to her 
at these times. She knew London and Paris, 
and New York, for she and Billy had taken 
a flying trip around the world for their honey- 
moon, and she took care to know of the latest 
plays, the new essayists, the rising poets. Some- 
times, after a reception, Billy would find her 
dreamy and absent-minded through dinner. 

“Want to go see ‘The Pink Elephant’ ?” 
he might ask when they rose from the table. 

“Oh, Billy dear! Girls in yellow satin 
tights or Hussar uniforms! Oh, no!’ Mary 
would protest laughingly. “Go and play me 
“Peer Gynt,’ and then let’s stroll over to 
Mother’s for a moment!”’ 

Sometimes Billy prevailed, of course, and 
they went to the noisy musical show and to 
supper afterward, but Mary became more and 
more reluctant to share in these commonplace 
amusements and felt herself genuinely mar- 
tyred whenever she agreed to go. 


PF ceestully for half an hour. 
_ Field went, and the three gentlemen and } N 


Patterson sat down to cards. 


n ehe after the guests had gone away. 


Wye eh) ka? 


UNEDUCATING MARY sr 


*T don’t think we ought to entertain people 
to whom we feel that way,” offered Mary. 
“We ought simply to drop them.”’ 

“Simply to drop Cass Patterson would be 
simply to drop a pretty neat slice of business 
every year,’ Billy answered dryly. And, re- 
minded by the remark of something else, he 
chuckled. “Say, you’re in Dutch with the 
governor!”’ said he. 

“With your father?’”? Mary asked proudly, 
in surprise. 

“‘He’s wild—or he was!”’ grinned Billy, now 
wrenching at his white tie. “You got Mrs. 
Cliff a book, or something, for him, didn’t you?”’ 

Certainly,’ Mary said, watching her hus- 
band with a regally held head and with two 
quick spots of color burning in her cheeks. 
**He said he had to make some sort of present 
_ to the Cliffs when they moved into their new 
house, and I suggested a guest-book and got 
- it. Didn’t they deliver it? The man prom- 
ised me solemnly . 

» “Oh, they delivered it, all right!” said 

Billy. “And they also delivered the old man 

a bill for forty-five dollars. He was crazy. 

He called me into the office. ‘What'd Mary 
do?’ he asked. ‘Buy a gross of ’em?’”’ 


32 UNEDUCATING MARY 


“Well, I certainly feel well repaid for all the 
trouble I took in that matter,” Mary said 
coldly. “I had a vellum book specially made. 
I had Torrence’s engraver make a special 
design for the title page, and had someone of 
their people burn a beautiful design on the 
cover!”’ 

“Oh, well, Dad is just nervous and cross 
these days,” Billy said easily. “He'll be over 
it in a day or two! We got stung on some 
Porcupine stock that Davis and Perkins 
couldn’t deliver, and he felt it awfully. I 
wish | had better sense, sometimes,” said the 
son a little wistfully. “I often tell him that 
you've got the brains of the family, that you | 
ought to be his assistant instead of me! Things 
are going rotten now, and we don’t seem to 
catch up. I told him you and I[ might cut 
down a little i : 

“IT don’t know where,” said Mary promptly. 
“We have three maids, of course; but Milly 
practically gets no salary.” | 

“We have four,’ remarked Billy  sur- 
prisedly. 

“No, three,’ Mary persisted. “For your 
father pays for Nurse; he said he wanted that 
to be his present to Anthony.” 


UNEDUCATING MARY 33 


“That’s so, I forgot that,” Billy agreed. 
“And a pretty rotten job she makes of it!”’ he 
_ added under his breath a moment later. 

“Who do you mean? Nurse?” Mary 
asked sharply. 

“Well, he—yes, I do mean Nurse,” Billy 
said aftera pause. “She doesn’t manage him 
very well; he doesn’t obey any one now, not 
even me, and—and I[’|l bet she lets him eat be- 
tween meals.” 

“Who would you prefer to have take care of 
him?’’ asked Mary, politely icy. Her hus- 
band gave her a resentful glance. | 

“Oh, now, Mary! Don’t take that tone. 
All I want is not to have the kid grow up com- 
pletely ruined!” he said. 

“And I completely ruin him, ‘do I?’’ Mary 
asked evenly. Billy did not answer. Mary 
put her rings carefully into a little box, laid a 
chain she had been wearing in its own special 
compartment, shut the box and locked it. 

“I don’t think there is a better cared-for 
child in New Troy than Anthony,” she re- 
marked presently in a level voice. “I supply 
him with a trained nurse, I give him minute 
directions about his food, I am continually 
having Hubbard examine him, he has a 


34 UNEDUCATING MARY 


‘schedule with which nothing is allowed to 
interfere—and then, because he is a delicate 
child and a strong-willed child, you blame me 
because he doesn’t obey you!”’ 

“Delicate!’’ Billy echoed scornfully. 

“Don’t sneer, Billy. Yes, delicate. Nurse 
says she has never seen such a sensitive 
stomach. Do you realize that we have had a 
trained nurse in this house for Anthony five 
times since January? Anything upsets him, 
and a sick child is always a cross child. No, 
Billy; it isn’t Anthony that you’re angry 
about,” Mary said, with her even firmness. 
“It’s I. I know it. And I’ve warned you 
before that I can’t live in an atmosphere of 
criticism and carping and quarreling. If you 
and I can’t live in peace, let’s do the dignified 
thing. Let’s at least be honest about it, and 
admit that we’ve made a mistake! Anything 
is better,’ said Mary, with sudden passion in 
her voice, “than a life like this, than wretched- 
ness such as I have been enduring!”’ 

‘Tears came to her eyes, and she rested one 
elbow on her dressing table and leaned her 
head on her hand. There was a short silence. 
Neither husband nor wife either moved or 
spoke. | 


UNEDUCATING MARY 35 

“You mean divorce?”’ Billy said, with a 
nervous laugh, after a while. He had grown . 
very pale, and Mary’s color was fading, too. 

“Well, if I do?’ she asked bravely. “There 
is nothing half as disreputable about divorce as 
there is about living in this way—hating each 
other while bound together in the most] sacred 
tie that life holds!”’ 

“We don’t hate each other,” Billy submitted 
firmly, but in a troubled voice. Mary shrug- 
ged her shoulders. 

“Ah, well, why quibble about it?’’ she asked 
wearily. “You know we are both unhappy. 
You don’t like my treatment of Anthony; you 
don’t like my friends; we have nothing in 
common ay 

“We'd be happy enough, if you were ever 
satisfied,’ Billy persisted doggedly. “I’m 
sure I don’t know why you're unhappy. We 


have a fine kid, and a fine house, and lots of 


friends. We're young a 

“If I were ever satisfied!’’ echoed Mary, 
with a sort of ghostly mirth. She gave hima 
look in which pity had entirely mastered in- 
dignation. “Let’s not degrade ourselves by — 
idle discussions, Billy,’ she said gently. 
*They don’t affect the reality; that I cannot 


| 
| 


36 UNEDUCATING MARY 


{ 
”’ Mary paused, a little at a loss. She 


had not foreseen this conversation and was 


unwilling to follow it to its logical conclusion. 
“That I cannot go on in this way,” she fin- 
ished firmly. “lama human being, I am not 
a slave i 

“Oh, hire a hall!’’ Billy suggested good- 
naturedly. Mary had often heard the term 
before, and even used it herself in moments of 
high good humor. Now, however, she flushed 


darkly. 


“T think you need not be insulting, Billy!” 


she said coldly. “‘ You may not like to hear it, 


but it is true. I have been married now for 
five years; | have faithfully met all the ob- 
ligations of housekeeping and motherhood. 
You can’t deny it! Now I say that these 
duties do not satisfy me; I have other poten- 
tialities. I want to express myself, I want to 
mean something in the world! If you had a 
similar ambition, nobody would think of 


blaming you. Why should (i 


“Well, nobody’s blaming you! Go ahead,” 
interrupted’ Billy, who had been listening 
moodily, scowling meanwhile at the shining 
toes of his immaculate slippers. But Mary 
was staring darkly at her own beautiful re- 


UNEDUCATING MARY BF 
flection in the mirror, and did not speak for 
several seconds. 

“1 would rather not discuss it just now,” 
she said finally, in a tired tone. “You speak 
of it all very casually, as if you were half in 
fun; but to me it’s deadly, serious, earnest. 
_ If we decide to separate a 

“If we decide to separate,” Billy began in a 
high key. 

“Billy, please don’t use that tone to me,” 
his wife said patiently. 

“TI beg your pardon!”’ Billy said ferociously, 
and there was a long silence. ‘Then the man 
added bitterly, “1 hope you'll go so far as to 
inform me what you intend to do when you 
make up your mind.” 

Of the two, Mary had far the better self- 
control. Now, although she was very angry, 
not a ripple of emotion crossed her face. She 
_ looked very tired, and felt an overwhelming 
weariness of soul 

This was a “scene,” and she felt degraded 
and coarsened whenever she was dragged into 
one. Surely, surely, life could be lived on a 
higher plane than this one! Surely, dignified 
people need not indulge in these recrimina- 
tions. To submit to this, to keep up the pitt- 


38 UNEDUCATING MARY _ 
able pretense of the affection that had once 
bound them together was a course more suitable 
to the old, convention-bound woman of the 
past than to a modern woman of enlight- 
ened to-day. Mary dreaded the unpleasant- 
ness of a divorce, the publicity, the scandal. 
But, she told herself now, she ‘was but 
twenty-eight, life was before her, she must not 
lose the next precious decade of years for mere 
fear of misrepresentation, of appearances! 

“Tl tell you how I feel, Billy,” she said 
slowly, with a deep frown. “I don’t want to 
blame any one. I may be as much to blame 
myself as you are. But—TI can’t go on. 
This is no sudden decision. I’ve been think- 
ing of ita long time. I don’t want to go into 
the question of my merits or possibilities; I 
only know this: when I go to my own friends’ 
houses, when I entertain in my own way, I © 
am happy, | am in my element; I feel that I — 
can do things, and I know—I would be a fool 
not to know it—but the others turn to me 
when things are to be done, realize that I have 
a certain executive capacity. Wait, please 
don’t interrupt me!”’ said Mary, as Billy made 
a restless gesture. She went on, “Now at 
home everything is different. You and I are 


UNEDUCATING MARY 39 


notinsympathy. Weare eternally getting in- 
to just such disgraceful squabbles as we did 
to-night, a thing I never did in my life before! 
The baby takes about one twentieth of my 
time, the house even less. Now, I ask you, 
-whatamItodo? Embroider? Play cards?” 
Billy found no answer to the scornful ring in 
her voice. ‘‘No,” said Mary, after a pause, in 
a lower tone, “let us be reasonable, and think 
of the right way out, and take it! 

« “T don’t mean now, Billy. I didn’t mean to 
say anything about this for several days— 
weeks, perhaps. Amy’s just engaged, of 
course, and it wouldn’t do to have anything 
like this if 

“Oh, of course not! Let’s consider Amy,” 
Billy said sneeringly. “And how about the 
grocer; wouldn’t he like us to finish out the 
fiscal year?”’ 

“If I went to New York for a visit,’ Mary 
continued, ignoring his bitterness, “if Anthony 
went to Mother, who is perfectly wild to have 
him, and if you rented this house for a while, it 
would be nobody’s business then except our 
own! You naturally think only of your own 
side of the matter,” she went on, as Billy made 
some inarticulate sound. “But some day you 


: 40 UNEDUCATING MARY 


will think what it means to me to do this, to 
wreck the home you gave me, and start fresh 
somewhere i 

“What the deuce do you talk this way for, 
then?’ Billy demanded. “It makes me 
sick! Take a vacation if you want one; do as 
you please, but don’t talk about dragging us 
all through the rottenness ‘ 

“Billy,” Mary said thoughtfully, “do you 
realize that divorce is a modern institution, 
and that already one marriage out of every 
twelve is dissolved? ‘Think what that means, 
think how this country needed divorce! 
Think of the hideous hypocrisy of the days 
before divorce was legal, of the thousands of 
women who dragged out years and years of 
pretense——”’ 

“Oh, good-night!” said Billy violently. 
And a second later the slamming of his door 
shattered the midnight silence of the house in 
Cathedral Avenue. Marysighed. It was one 
more tiny link in the chain. | 

“Tt is the only honest and courageous 
course,’ Mary said to herself, meeting her own 
somber glance in her mirror, “there is no other 
way; it must be divorce!” 


CHAPTER II 
T WAS in asobered frame of mind that she 


came downstairs on the following morning. 
Anthony was much better, quite himself again, 
in fact, and Billy was gone for the day. So 
Mary had her letters and her breakfast alone 
in the sun-splashed dining-room, thinking 
deeply of the months to come with their tre- 
mendous changes and chances. 

As the day and the week wore on, however, 
the happy current of her life caught her once 
more. Billy made no allusion to their mid- 
night talk, although he was serious and unlike 
himself. Wide-spread entertaining met the 
news of Miss Amy Throckmorton’s engage- 
ment, and Mary gave luncheons and dinners 
constantly for her pretty little sister. ‘The 
spring was in full flower now, lilacs and locust 
blossoms scented the still air of Cathedral 
Avenue, and Anthony drooped in the un- 
timely heat. Mary’s clubs were giving their 
closing affairs, elaborate luncheons with 

4I 


tar SNe 


oo you were in New York, Mrs. Const ble 


: and vaguely pernied present. 
What was the wretched child calling, 


ic uicing news? Suddenly the ahd ce 
Y seemed to fail beneath Mary’s feet. She felt 


misery of repulsion and fear. ‘ief ar 
of gpre three hundred words was the fe) 


but by the time Billy came home she knew it 
by heart. 

Her first glance at his face confirmed her 
worst misgivings. It was all up, he told her 
wearily, dropping into a chair. The dear old 
governor had seen it coming and had tried to 
stave it off; but there was no use, it was too 
late! Constable and Son had gone into bank- — 
ruptcy. ) 

In the first instant of utter consternation 
and distaste Mary found the truth impossible 
to believe. Constable and Son! Why, it had 

always been one of the business assets of the 
town, a firm of which New Troy could well be 
proud, as reliable as government bonds, as 


steady as the blue-gray mountains that ringed 


the city. Constable and Son fail, be proved 
“untrue to its sacred trust, be blamed in the 
daily papers, and—it was too horrible to be 
true! Mary writhed away from the details, 


_ from her mother’s kindly concern and her sis- 


ters’ tactful sympathy. She could feel noth- 
ing but scornful resentment toward Billy’s 
father, Anthony Constable the older, who had 
turned, in a single week, from a cheerful, silent, 
keen-eyed broker to a thin and nervous shad-~ 
ow of his old self. He had been responsible, 


UNEDUCATING MARY 43. 


yy UNEDUCATING MARY 


after all, thought Mary; he might have seen 
this coming; he might have done something ! 

Toward Billy her attitude was _ hardly 
softer, or softer only by the measure of its quiet 
contempt. She had always blamed him for 
his light-hearted, happy-go-lucky philosophy; 
she was not apt to blame him less now. For 
days she went about like a woman in a dream, ~ 
an evil dream, in which friendly, faces were 
pitying and strange faces curious, and all the 
serene routine of life underwent a _ bitter 
change. . 

Repining was useless, and she was too clever 
a woman to waste time in useless regret. She 
suffered, but it was for the most part with 
dignity and in silence. From the very be- 
ginning she hoped that this cataclysm would 
lead to their leaving New Troy, to begin anew 
in some larger, more interesting city. This 
hope she did not express; but she did express 
her determination to find some means by 
which she herself might help to mend the 
family’s fallen fortunes, and consoled herself 
in her bitterest moments with the reflection 
that the eclipse was only temporary; in a few 
months or a year or two she would emerge 
from poverty and obscurity, to enjoy a still 


PORN VM Meare i nc aah aiiane MLE TES CMe ot MU ARIMA ed AYU DRURG ce CURN A USAIN aa 

UNEDUCATING MARY AS 

- more enviable prominence. It was a change, 
at least, and Mary was young enough to feel 
that any change was for the better. 

“We'll have to move,” said Billy, one eve- 
ning about a week after the crash, when hus- 
band and wife were talking over their affairs in 
the sitting-room. 

““Movet’? Mary asked, alarmed. “Why 
—but we don’t pay any rent at all here!”’ 

~ “T know it,” said Billy, “but we could al- 
ways rent this house for a hundred, say. — 
And we could get a smaller place somewhere 
I’m sure, for, say, thirty.” 

~ “T suppose we could,’ Mary admitted re- 
luctantly, after some thought. It did not 
strike her as at all remarkable that her hus- 
band, a rich man’s only son, should take these 
heroic measures to bring about a reduction of 
their living expenses, but it did seem to her 
distasteful and inconvenient. “But, Billy, 
we ll have some money?” she asked doubtfully. 

“What from?” Billy said. ‘My salary 

stops like a shot, of course.” 

“But, Billy, you'll have to get another 
position!” | 

Billy scowled thoughtfully. 

“Well, you see, there it is, Mary!” he 


46 UNEDUCATING MARY | 
answered presently, with a nervous ale a 
“The governor is all broken up about this, as 
you know. It’s—it’s pitiful to see him these 
days! He feels that, if I stand by him, he may 
be able to get on his feet again, d’you see? 
He wants to pay everyone a hundred cents on 
the dollar, eventually, and, by George!” 
Billy interrupted himself with sudden en- 
thusiasm, “I believe that the old boy will do it 
yet! But he can’t do it without me.” 

“TI don’t see why,” said Mary, simply and 
unflatteringly. | 

“Well, you would see why, if you understood 
the business!’’ Billy answered with a resent- 
ful flush. “I’m young, ve got my whole life 
ahead of me to help clear this thing up. [Tm 
not awfully smart,” admitted Billy boyishly, 
“but everyone knows that if I stay with it 
there’s a chance that we'll get it straight. 
Carter and Cartwright offered me a berth with 
them to-day i 

“They did!’ ejaculated Mary, instantly 
brightening. 

‘Sure they did. And I could see, dhe I said 
I was going to stick by my father, that they 
were surprised, It’s just as if they said to them- 
selves: “Lord, Constable may pull out yet!” © 


Meta as 


sida thought we were going to ‘settle’ with 
creditors,’ said Mary, after a painful silence. 

“That’s just the legal part. Of course Dad 
feels morally obligated to do better than that 
if he can!”’ 

“I see,’’ Mary said discontentedly, after a. 
pause. She was fairly sick with distaste and 
apprehension. The peaceful current of her 
life, once violently disturbed, seemed very 
unlikely to settle again soon. “I’ve let Nurse 
go, of course,” she added plaintively. Billy 
knew this, for his little son’s crib, to their: 
mutual satisfaction, had been moved into his 
own room for the past two nights, but he 
said “Good!” simply to encourage his wife. 

*‘And you told Louise and Delia that love’s 
young dream was o’er, didn’t you?”’ he asked. 

*‘At the end of the month,’”’ Mary assented 
solemnly. 

“And Milly’s gone back to her interesting 
mother?” 

“Yesterday.” 

“Well, then, [ll put this house in an 
agent’s hands to-morrow,” Billy said briskly 
in a satisfied tone. “Can you begin to look 
for some place?”’ 

vi suppose so,’ Mary said lifelessly. And 


UNEDUCATING MARY Ce 


48 | UNEDUCATING MARY 


she began quietly to cry. Billy came over to 
sit on the arm of her chair to comfort her, and 
she rested her head against his coat, and wept 
a little for the sheer luxury of tears. 

“Then we h-have just the r-rent of this 
house?’ she asked shakily, after an interval. 

“Well, that’s all we’re sure of,” Billy said 
reassuringly. “‘Of course if we get tight up 
we ll have to borrow, or I might sell a little 
real estate on the side, and get a commission, do 
- yousee? Don’t worry, old girl, we'll get along!”’ 


Mary left Anthony with Delia, and went 
house-hunting the very next day, and for 
several days thereafter. But it was dis- 
couraging work. The early summer days 
were hot and enervating, and their merciless 
brightness made empty houses and apart- 
ments look very dingy and bare. Her first 
find was a roomy, modern apartment, quite 
satisfactory in every respect except rent, — 
which was eighty dollars. 

Billy unequivocally refused to consider this 
proposal, and Mary began to hunt again. 

“We simply cannot find what we want for 
less than sixty dollars!’’ she declared on the 
fifth evening. | 


UNEDUCATING MARY  49._~ 


“Then we must take what we don’t want,” 
said Billy philosophically. 

“Billy! You don’t know what that means. 
Dark bathrooms, and no pantry between the 
kitchen and dining-room, and awful papers! 
Or else smells on the stairs and people you 
don’t know a thing about using the same halls! 
The floors of the Lincoln Street house are 
simply splinters; you couldn’t paint, you 
couldn’t stainthem! ‘Then that yellow house 
Mother telephoned about is a perfect barn, 
with the dampest basement! I’m sure I don’t. 
_know what we are going to do!” 

“Well, Vil look around myself to-morrow,” 
Billy said good-naturedly. And two days 
later, when Mrs. Throckmorton came in to 
spend an hour with her daughter, Mary told 
her that they had decided upon a house. 

“Where is it?’ asked the older woman, 
cuddling her grandson with unreproved satis- 
faction. 

“River Street, down by the bridge,’’ Mary 
said unenthusiastically. “They've been 
standing empty something like six months; 
but they’ve six rooms, and twenty dollars; so, 
of course, Billy was delighted!’ : 

“My darling, don’t be bitter!” her mother 


-) 50 «« UNEDUCATING MARY 


said gently. “They’re plain little houses, of 
course, but it’s really a sweet quiet part of 
- town; Amy and Larry are really seriously con= 

sidering one!’ | 

“You have to pass every factory in New 
Troy to get there,’ Mary stated coldly. 
“But I suppose we have to live somewhere! 
I’ve not seen them, and | don’t intend to until 
we move in. Mother ” she began in a 
slightly more interested tone, and stopped. 

“What is it?’ asked Mrs. Throckmorton. | 

“Nothing!” Mary answered. But just 
as her mother was going an hour later she sud- 
denly asked casually, ‘Mother, how do you 
move!” 

“How do I move?” 

“I mean, how does any one move?” Mary 
amended. 

“Oh, I see!’ said her mother, careful to 
preserve a casual air. ‘Well, you pack boxes 
of books first; books and pictures and things 
you don’t need. Then you pack china and 
clothing, and cover any very handsome piece 
of furniture with old rugs, and take the beds — 
apart, and roll the mattresses.”’ 

“I telephoned the Bartlett people,” said 
Mary in a low tone, “and told them to send a 


y ate 


professional packer. But I asked the charge, 

and it’s frightful—about sixty dollars, the 
said, for a house this size, and fifteen dollars . 
a load for three loads. So I canceled the 
order.” 

“Tl have Daddy send you out some barrels 
and crates,’ said Mrs. Throckmorton, “‘and 
suppose. ! carry off this darling boy for the 
night?” 

“T’m a wild jungle bear and my name is Ba- 
loo!” said Anthony. “Aunt Amy told me 
about it. Aunt Amy’s name is Hathi, and 
she is an elephant!”’ 

“Well, you take me home to your lair, 
Baloo!” said his grandmother. Mary kissed 
the child’s eager little face a bit wistfully. 

“Whom do you love?” she asked, straight- 
ening the bear’s coat collar. 

“TI love Aunt Amy,” said Baloo; “but I[ 
didn’t love Nurse, and I’m glad she went to 
the Winship children!”’ 


When Billy came home he found Mary in 
the centre of the demoralized drawing-room, 
her hair wild, her cheeks flushed. She had a 
statuette in her hand and was standing by a 

large empty barrel. 


/ UNEDUCATING MARY gr 


ys UNEDUCATING ‘MARY 


“Billy, can you pack?” she ae ieee 
preliminary. “I’m sure I can’t, and Delia is 
simply no good! We packed a box, and it 
rattled frightfully, so we opened it again and 
four of the een glasses were broken 

already!” 

Well, we'll see if we can’t struggle along 
with eight champagne glasses in the River 
Street house!’’ Billy said, with a grin for the 
artless experiment of the amateur packers. 
“Sure I can pack!” he added confidently. 
“Wait until after dinner, and then I'll take 
off my coat and you'll see the fur fly!” 

Mary watched him after dinner with some 
respect as he capably selected heavy articles 
for the bottom of the crates, neatly filled in 
empty spaces, and used torn newspapers and 
crushed tissue-paper where they were needed, 
with economy and discretion. 

“Now that I’ve seen you do it, I can go 
straight ahead!” she told him, when the first 
session was over at midnight. But when 
morning came, with a new note of something 
like timidity in her voice she asked him to stay 
away from the office for one day. Some of 
the Constables’ heavier furniture was to be 
_ stored, as unfitted to the River Street house, a 


--UNEDUCATING MARY ag : 


few pieces had been sold to the incoming __ 


nl eae 
i +4 


tenant, odds and ends from attic and base- 
ment were to be given away; Mary felt utterly 
confused and overwhelmed by the varied 
directions that must be given. Besides, for 
perhaps the first time in her life, she had full 
charge of Anthony for the day, for Delia had 
been sent to clean the River Street house, and 
Louise was the centre of a wildly disordered 
kitchen and was responsible for cooking and 
serving the day’s meals as well. | | 
Mary, since her little son’s birth nearly four 
years before, had made a serious study of all 
that was modern and best-approved in child- 
culture. Anthony was a clever child for jall 
his restlessness, and Mary, in supplying him 
with a splendid nurse and with the toys and 
books recommended for boys of his age, had 
felt sure that he was started on the right path 
toward learning and self-development. | 
But to-day she found the care of him some- | 
thing of a problem. As long as she gave him 
her undivided attention he was delightfully — 
sweet and amusing, even if he did build houses _ 
with his letter blocks, use his numerical chart | 
chiefly as a rattle, mingle his nicely scaled 


weights with his Noah’s Ark, and fill the aper- mh . 


OC, ay 4 ae ThA 
OBS My i De natar A CMe 


ta CUNEDUCATING MARY.) 
tures into which they should have been fitted — 
with lead soldiers. But the instant she left 
_ him alone he began to cry. : 
| It was useless to remind him that now ye 
was Mother’s big boy, that Mother was very 
busy to-day, that’ the lady in the house next 
door would hear him and tell her little boys and 
girls that Anthony Constable was a cry-baby! 
Anthony was dead to argument as he was dead 
to shame; he never had played alone, and he 
did not intend to begin to-day! 

“I thought these new things would teach 
children to be self-dependent and resourceful, ’ 
said Mary to her mother in troubled tones 
when Mrs. Throckmorton, rosy and cheerful, 
came in to see if she could be of any use to the 
upset household. ‘“‘Children’’—Mary’s voice 
gsrew more confident—‘‘children ought to 
learn enough in the nursery to give them a long 
start when school days begin,’ she stated. 
“But he simply throws these things about as 
if they had no significance whatever!” 

“Well, I don’t think Alice had a very nice 
way with children,’’ Mrs. Throckmorton said, _ 
a little obscurely. “She didn’t train him to 
amuse himself.”’ | 


“Why, Mother!’ Mary exclaimed. “She 


UNEDUCATING MARY 55 
was a specially trained nursery-maid, and got 
ten dollars a week!”’ 

“Well, he’d behave a great deal better if he 
had a little brother or sister to play with, as 
all you children had,” suggested the grand- 
mother. | 


The day seemed endless to Mary. She 
built block-houses, she turned the pages of 
Anthony’s books. The clock dragged. It — 
was two o’clock, it was quarter-of-three, it was 
ten minutes after three. Anthony went to 
bed at seven, but seven o'clock seemed ages 
away. A summer wind was howling outside 
of the dismantled rooms, but Mary would 
have wrapped the little boy warmly and taken 
him into the Park if a dozen appointments 
with plumber and paperer, storage men and 
movers had not made her presence at home 
necessary. 

But Billy, who had gone down-town on some 


business connected with the moving, got home _ 


at about four o’clock. Mary had not felt 
for months the warm rush of welcome that rose 
in her at the sight of him. billy suggested 
that they all three go to have a look at the 


River Street house, and Mary was secretly Oe 


56 UNEDUCATING MARY 


almost as glad as the rioting Anthony to put 
on her hat and get out of doors. | 

Her heart sank, however, as they neared 
their new home, passing through the ugly 
factory district and reaching finally a wide 
and rambling street that, beside Cathedral 
Avenue, looked very shabby and bare. The 
house itself was cheap and part of a cheap row. 
There were flimsy fences around the little 
front yards, but for the most part there were 
no gardens, just well-tramped stretches of 
barren earth. 

The new home possessed no touch of dis- 
tinction. The paint on the front door was 
peeling, the entrance hall, finished in shining 
red varnish, smelled vaguely of dust and 
plaster. There was a sitting-room with a 
_ hideous mantel, connecting by wide doors with 
a perfectly square, bare dining-room. Delia, 
ina shaft of bright sunlight, was scrubbing 
the rough floor in the kitchen, a kitchen whose 
plaster walls had been thickly coated with 
light blue paint. Upstairs there were three 
bedrooms, all hideously and differently pa- 
pered, and a bathroom with a tin tub, and a 
wash-hand stand built in above a cabinet with 
a varnished wooden door. 


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PA bs ae Peon ON kh Fe a ihe Ae Ae Se \ one tl) mie Mit UNA Ste Pane f ‘on Wie! Aer ee BY y H 
bey me Wa, te Ne tued TS Wa as Toe Wet hae es He AE OR a ty 7th PAY REBT ie ey be bhai Wreck Me Ag ‘ 
(2, PG es Tt ee iy a oh EM a ¥Y ‘ ity 
hoy } , pat it Li : 


ny ee Ay b 


“UNEDUCATING MARY. 57 __ 


- Billy kept sending wistful glances toward 
his wife as they went about; he was only a 
man after all, and the place looked bright and 
inviting to him; but Mary was too stunned to 
respond to his mute questions, indeed in her 
utter sickness of spirit she did not even see 
them. The dreadful fortnight just past had 
taught her something, for she had already 
borne more than she once could have borne, 
- but now an anguished exclamation burst from 
her: 

“Billy, dear! We simply can’t live here! 
It isn’t safe. That covered plumbing is an 
absolute menace to human life,’ she said. 
“Washing tubs in the kitchen are most un- 
sanitary, and you simply cannot keep cooking 
smells out of the house unless there is a large 
airy pantry between the kitchen and dining- 
room! Then the whole place is papered, 
which is sure to breed disease, and if we get a 
maid she'll have to use our bathroom, and sleep 
on the same floor with us; one bathroom in a 
house is just about as good as none !”’ 

“Well, you hunted the town over, and 
couldn’t find anything better,’ said Billy, 
pushing his hat back and wiping his forehead 
with a silk handkerchief. “‘We’re cooler here 


£8 “UNEDUCATING MARY 


than anywhere else in town, in hot EHTEL 
and the big bedroom gets a lovely view of he ~ 
river. There’sa good backyard with an apple 

tree in it for Anthony; that’s more than he had 

at home!” 

at simply wouldn’t be safe to bring An- 
thony here,’ Mary said firmly, “we would 
blame ourselves for ever if he got ill!” 

“The block seems fairly safe for children,”’ 
Billy observed dryly, for indeed River Street 
swarmed with joyous babies. 

“If we could scrape off every bit of paper,” 
Mary murmured, “put in modern plumbing, 
build a maid’s room and bath in the attic, and 
put the washtubs in the basement—but, even 
then, I’d be afraid!” | n 

“Which would cost about four hundred 
dollars—more than a year’s rent!” Billy 
observed. “And the old man won't do one 
thing; he stuck to that. It isn’t a question of 
what we'd like to do, Mary; it’s simply that 
we haven’t the money. Whatever this is, it’s 
better for the kid than living in some dark 
apartment, or boarding. I wish myself that 
everything was a little better, but Anthony 
can take his chances with the other young- 


i) sters!”’ 


"UNEDUCATING MARY gg, 


_. Three days later the Constables moved into 
the River Street house, an experience to which 
Mary looked back all her life as unspeakably 
trying and discouraging. Billy was in un- 
expectedly high spirits; he really liked the less 
pretentious establishment, and Anthony was 
at an age when moving-day is one long de- 
light. Amy flitted about the new domain like 
a good fairy, interested and eager in helping, 
and Mrs. Throckmorton came over late in the 
afternoon with a custard for Anthony’s dinner 
and an armful of roses with which to embellish 
the rather dreary sitting-room. But Mary 
moved through her part of the day’s proceed- 
ings, or through what she conceived to be her 
part, like an automaton, silent, abstracted, 
sad. Her eyes were full of unfathomable 
- weariness, her voice lifeless and gentle. She 
did not care where Billy placed her bureau; 
she said she had no preference in the matter 
of rugs; she was not tired, her head did not 
ache, she was not hungry. 

+ The whole long summer day was unutter- 
ably desolate to her. She shuddered in spirit 
at the sight of her familiar belongings against 
this background of garish cheapness. The 
dining-room, with its half-filled boxes, its 


60 UNEDUCATING MARY —_ 


tangle of newspapers and wrappings; the 
drawing-room, with careless pyramids of books 
cascading against odd-wases and jars set on 
the floor; and the bedrooms with blankets and 
sheets tumbled haphazard upon the bare 
mattresses, were alike hateful to her. 

Amy took Anthony to the little grocery at 
the corner at five o'clock and came back tri- 
umphantly with spongy bread and butter, 
canned tomatoes and mutton chops, for sup- 
per. Anthony’s radiant face was smeared 
with a moist ginger cracker when he came 
chattering in. 

“Did this come in a sealed package?” 
Mary asked, as she patiently wiped the child’s 
face at the sink. 

“No, it didn’t!” said Amy, struck wan re- 
morse. ‘Or if it did, it had been opened for 
some time. The man got it from under the 
counter.” | 

“Under the counter!’”’ Mary said, with a 
violent shudder. 

“Chops and bread—gosh, how good food 
looks!’’ Billy exulted unaffectedly. “And 
coffee! Me for two cups of strong coffee!” 

** And we stopped a milkman and ordered milk 
and cream,’’ Amy announced complacently. 


UNEDUCATING MARY 61 

“What milkman?” Mary demanded. 

“1 don’t know, Sis. It said ‘Casey’s Home 
Dairy.’ It’s only two blocks away!”’ 

“Billy,” said Mary, a world of quiet tragedy 
in her voice, “do you think that is safe?”’ 

“Oh, sure it’s safe!’ Billy answered easily. 
“Look here, Scout,” he added to his son, 
“you mustn’t eat any more now! You're 
going to sit up and have dinner with us to- 
night!” 

One of Mary’s rules was that when severity 
or indulgence was meted out to Anthony by 
either father or mother, the other parent must 
remain passive, while the child was present at 
least. But she broke this rule. impulsively 
now. 

“ Billy—really, dear! You know how bad 
that is for him! You know a child’s little 
nervous system records every impression; 
every hour he is out of bed after six o’clock 
wastes just so much precious tissue.”’ 

“Well, his crib isn’t put up,’ protested 
Billy. “I don’t believe it will hurt him, just 
this once! And he’s having the time of his 
life!” 

Deeply hurt, Mary fell back upon silence. 
She put away the grocery packages, moving 


62 | UNEDUCATING MARY 

wearily back and forth over the splintered 
kitchen floor. The chops were put upon a 
plate and with the milk were set away in the 
ice box. Billy went out to:sweep dust and 
litter from the shabby front steps, and Amy 
ran upstairs to make beds. Presently Mrs. 
Throckmorton came in, eager to praise and ad- 
mire and anxious to help with dinner Peco 

tions. : 

“Really, dearest, you’ve already dane won- 
ders with the place,” she said encouragingly. 
“T think you'll be very comfortable here, and 
not half as much bothered with callers as if 
you had been nearer town! Hello, Grand- 
ma’s precious,’ she said to Anthony, “look 
what I brought for my boy’s supper! It’s 
nearly six,” she added to Mary. “Can't I 
help you get things started?”’ 

“Potatoes are coming, but they may not be 
here in time,’ Amy sang cheerfully, returning 
to the kitchen. “But we’ve got a gas stove, 
sO we can get ready innotime! We'll have to 
eat here, the dining-room’s a mess. Where’s 
the milk, Mary?” i 

“In the ice chest,” Mary said, clearing a 
hundred miscellaneous objects fromthe kitchen 
table. . 


© 


housekeeper as Amy is in no time! 


_ UNEDUCATING MARY 63. 
“Tn the ice chest!” Amy exclaimed. _ 
“Certainly,” answered Mary promptly. 
““Meat should never remain in paper, the 


juices exude too rapidly. And milk should 
never for one instant stand anywhere except 


in the refrigerator! The transporting of milk 


is one of the greatest difficulties which dealers 
have to overcome, for any contagion——”’ 
“All very fine,” said Amy, in a gale of care- 


_ free laughter, “but there’s no ice!’’ 


Mary’s face reddened slowly; even her gentle 
mother laughed merrily. | 
“TJ didn’t notice that,” Mary said slowly. 
‘At home we—we always had ice! At least, I 
suppose we had a 
“Never mind, Mary,’ her mother said 
soothingly. “It’s all rather confusing and 
difficult at first. But you'll be as good a 


2 


99 


“TI never would have known anything, if I 
hadn’t run the house while Mother was away 
last summer,’ Amy said contentedly, pouring 
milk into Anthony’s mug. “Taste this, 
Mother,” she added, holding out a table- 
spoonful of milk toward her mother. “Doesn't 
that taste nice and rich?”’ | 

“Yes, but—but Amy never took a course in 


reigors on either side, Mrs. Dees a Mrs 


parative success. They cooked, wadhed 


ii 


ed, ae out long lines of bowing f 


a 


a) 


iad save her heels, she tried to sealy ae 


UNEDUCATING MARY 65. 


~ world of unmade bed, unwashed dishes, and 


unswept rooms. The kitchen work was never _ 


quite done; always there was one more streak 
of milk from Anthony’s mug to be wiped away, 
always there was one unopened package from 
the grocery, one unwashed saucepan in the 
sink. Then she must get to market in time 
for the morning delivery; and get home in time 
to put a potato in the oven to bake for An- 
thony’s luncheon. 

Mary began to appreciate the attention 
when her mother came in with a blue bowl 
packed with delicious salad, or invited the 
young Constables to come to the hospitable 
Throckmorton house after dinner to enjoy 
an ice and an hour or two on the shady side 
porch. Mary played the old songs he loved 
for her father; she even played bridge with 
Billy and Rodney and her father in the cool 
old airy sitting-room, although for years she 
had given up these simple occupations. On 
these occasions Anthony had to sit up for 
dinner, of course, and be carried drowsily home 
rolled in a steamer plaid, but even this de- 
parture from all nursery rule and regulation 
seemed less important to Mary than it once 
might have seemed. 


66 UNEDUCATING MARY __ 
Billy did what he could; months went by 


before Mary really appreciated the extent of 


his unselfish interest and codperation. He 
never complained of the abridged meals; he 
praised wherever praise was humanly possible; 
he took Anthony off Mary’s hands almost 
every afternoon for the hour before dinner; 
and on Sunday, when she was too busy to go 
with him he carried the little boy off for an 
hour or two with Grandfather Constable. 
But even Billy could not spare Mary very 
much, and between fatigue and heat and in- 
experience and inward rebellion she spent a 
- wretched month. 

“Would you rather have the front hall 
papered, for your birthday, or have a maid 
for a few weeks?” Billy asked one evening, 
when they were lingering over a comparatively 
successful dinner. 

“T would rather have a maid for three weeks 
than have a tiara of Cullinan diamonds!” 
Mary said fervently. ‘But there’s no com- 
parison in expense, unfortunately! The pa- 
pering would cost nine dollars, he said, and 
nine dollars would pay a cook for iu one 
week.” 

“Tl bet I could get a maid for less than $9,” 


A rR er Rie ONAL SPM RAINS TAR, Nee Year WORN NAN A Rated eer SUGAR VAY LT me 
ey pss SA ATi aU ash fai Rw § 
SON YAP ROr acd et TN operat ; } 


UNEDUCATING MARY 67 
said Billy. “Ill round you up something just 
over from County Sligo, or a Russian lady in 

a fur hat!’ 3 

~ “Don’t!” Mary said ungratefully. “Im 
not able to instruct a greenhorn. No; let’s 
go on as we are.” 

“You’re terribly plucky,” Billy answered 
gratefully. “But cheer up, Cassandra, the 
woyst is yet to come!” : 

“Don’t say that, Billy,’ Mary said pas- 
sionately, sudden tears in hereyes. He came 
penitently over to her side. 

“Don’t worry, dear,” Billy said tenderly. 
“It’s rotten, I know. But it won't last for 
ever. Next year will be just that much better, 
and the year after that I bet we'll just be sail- . 

ing along! It’s making a hit with everybody, 
our coming right down to brass tacks this way. 
Fellows simply go out of their way to be de- 
cent with me, and when the governor was 
looking over accounts the other day and found 
that you and | had drawn only fifteen dollars 
last month he just broke down like a kid. | 
told him we hadn’t meant to draw that; that 
we planned to live on the rent of the Cathe- 
_ dral Avenue house, and he—well, he got me 
all broke up, too! It’s—it’s character- 


Oa | UNEDUCATING MARY 7 
building, Mary!’ He laughed on the last — 
wotds, and she laughed shakily, too, for that — 
had been a familiar phrase in the days of their 
honeymoon, when Mary had asked her hus- 
band to forego his second cocktail, or Billy had 
urged her to dive boldly into the cold breakers 
of Monterey Beach. 


CHAPTER III 
| At EW days later Drika came, a stolid little 


Dutch girl of perhaps seventeen, with a 
stiff plait of yellow hair sticking down her 
back between her round little plaid shoulders, 
and with the noisiest of hobnailed shoes. 
Drika spoke no English, nor did she under- 
stand even the simplest of the customs of her 
new-found country. She looked trustingly, 
if in utter bewilderment, upon Mary, with a 
pair of yellow-lashed, sea-blue eyes. She still 
carried the green cloth bag with which she had 
come off the ocean liner five days before. 

Drika had the sudden, free laugh of a child, 
unless it was more like the unexpected squawk 
of a wild bird. She clumped upstairs after 
Mary with a child’s docility and Billy, down- 
stairs, heard the first of the remarkable 
dialogues that were to take place between the 
two women. 

“Well, what d’you think of her?” he asked 
when Mary came down. | 

69 


70  UNEDUCATING MARY 


“Impossible! Where'd you get her?” Mary 
asked in a low voice. 

“At an employment agency. She’s just 
over,’ answered Billy. “Her sister's been in 
one place for four years. She comes of nice 
people, and two dollars and a half a week 
sounded good to her! The woman at the 
agency asked me no end of questions; they 
evidently mean to keep an eye on the kid.” 

“They needn’t,’ Mary said, with a flash of 
her old fun. “I don’t see anybody stealing 
her!” 

She went into the kitchen to begin dinner 
preparations, and presently Drika slipped 
downstairs with the wary eyes of a hare and 
joined her mistress. The new maid presently 
set the table, adding several unnecessary 
silver spoons and cut-glass dishes to its usual 
equipment, merely for the pleasure their 
presence gave her. She triumphantly brought 
in the pudding while Billy was carving the 
steak, and laughed and clapped her hands 
with delight when the Deetles’ cat, as was his 
habit, walked uninvited into the room. Mary 
banished Drika and the cat, and the maid de- 
parted kissing the intruder affectionately. 
But when Anthony presently began to call out 


UNEDUCATING MARY 71 
from his crib, Drika ran upstairs as a matter 
of course to quiet him and later she settled 
-down to dishwashing with evident good-will. 
‘Somehow the dishes were washed; Mary did 

not investigate the process, and the maid 

appeared at the sitting-room door to astonish 

her employers and delight herself with a 

beaming “‘Goo’-neet.’ 

*She’s a decent-hearted little thing!” ad 
Billy, when she had gone upstairs. _He.smiled 
rather doubtfully at his wife. 

_ “And, oh, the blessed relief of not doing the 

dishes!’’ Mary added, with a long, luxurious 

sigh. ‘Two dollars and a half, is it? I never 
dreamed you could get one! Perhaps I can 
do something with her.” And, silently grate- 
ful for an attitude even so much softened, 

_ Billy pursued the topic no further. 

Mary speedily persuaded Drika to braid her 
hair about her head, a fashion very becoming 
to her blond youth, and gave her a pair of 
beautiful, if half-worn, shoes. She could not 
help liking the silent, stupid little thing, for 
Drika was instantly subjugated by Anthony, 
and Mary found her very fortunate in her 
manner with the little boy and evidently used 
to the company of small children. 


Phe ashy 2) Le A a 


UNEDUCATING MARY 73.” 


effort to smooth beds and manipulate the 
broom, Drika’s half-civilized yell of rich 
laughter waiting upon all his efforts. When 
she played with his blocks, she made him di- 
vide evenly, she drew letters on his slate and 
pronounced them, and shouted with laughter 
when he pronounced them, too. It was to 
be seen that Anthony loved, respected, and 
feared her. 4 

On the afternoon of the first wet day Mary © 
came in from market to hear Drika’s and 
Anthony’s voices in the kitchen. 

mbed boy!’ :said) Drika. “LT slep vous 
hend!! > = 

“Aw, don’t, Dreek,”’ exclaimed Anthony. 
“Tl stop, | won’t eat-any more!”’ 

Curious, Mary opened the door. The two 
were shelling peas, Anthony more absorbed 
even than Drika was.. The little boy sat in 
his high chair, his handsome little face screwed 
into a frown as he pressed a refractory shell. | 
Drika, in a coarse blue cotton, looked pictur- 
esque at least, and the quiet warm kitchen was 
inviting on the damp, raw afternoon. Mary | 
smiled at the domestic picture. Of course a 
child’s place is not in a kitchen, and green peas 
are not usually considered wise food for the 


year-old stomach—but ‘Anthony 
happy and was always good with Drika 
This was several weeks after Drika’ S a tl 


Mi Dover; in general. Drika it was who. putz 
ne sae of soda into the heating milk a 


UNEDUCATING MARY ir 

the wash boiler with a magic lye that cleaned 
every grimy saucepan and frying-pan in the 
_ house. When Mary praised her for these 
accomplishments she fairly danced for joy, 
shouting out such English words as she had 
mastered and giving her wild laugh free 
play. 

So much for the credit side of Drika’s 
ledger. There was unfortunately a long bal- 
ance on the opposite sheet. At least once 
a day Mary decided that she must get rid of 
the creature, and try again. Drika’s lack of 
English was a continual exasperation; she 
was very noisy, and maddeningly ignorant in 
certain directions. She would place sheets, 
blankets, and counterpane upon a bed in any 

order that was convenient, blankets perhaps 
ontop. She scrubbed the varnish from Billy’s 
hair brushes, washed out a beautiful silk scarf 
of Mary’s that was completely ruined by the 
process, and left a line of kerosene stain from 
her duster all about the sitting-room base- 
board. 

In the kitchen her errors were countless. 
Sometimes the salted water for the oatmeal 
ruined the coffee, and the oatmeal came taste- 

less to the table. Baking puddings were 


76 UNEDUCATING MARY 
forgotten until the very pudding bowl was 
hopelessly burned, and the kitchen draped 
with clouds of smoke. Her clumsy little hands 
made sad havoc with Mary’s beautiful china, 
and her voice and her laughter could be heard 
all over the house. Still, she was better than 
no help at all, and Mary, remembering the 
first hot month of the River Street house, 
dreaded being left to her own resources again. — 
But it was Drika’s conscientious and capable — 
care of Anthony, after all, that finally tipped 
the scale in her favor. She loved the little 
boy, and Anthony returned her affection. 

Gradually Mary learned to shop so far- 
sightedly that two or three afternoons a week 
were free, and when Anthony was with Drika, 
dinner so far anticipated that only half an hour 
would be needed to finish its preparation, 
Mary could lie down with a book, write a 
letter, or, dressing herself in the dainty gowns 
and retrimmed hat of the previous summer, 
could even go to see a few old friends on the 
other side of the city. 

At first these calls were a real pleasure to her, 
but swiftly they lost their charm. The cur- 
rent of her life had swept her too far away from 
these orderly darkened drawing-rooms, these 


_ UNEDUCATING MARY 77 


capped-and-aproned maids, these women in ae 
their beautiful gowns. She knew nothing of 


the clubs, nothing of social events. She could 
make her own changed fortunes and her do- 
mestic experiences the subject of a laughing 
tale, but she was not slow to realize that her 
old friends found this rather shocking than 
amusing; they could not understand the situa- _ 
tion, and pitied her heartily for the little they — 
did understand. She caught them tactfully — 
withholding from her the details of their 
gowns and pleasures, the histories of expedi- 
tions and summer plans. 

And even while she talked to them, she was 
conscious of being needed elsewhere. She 
must get home by five o'clock if Anthony’s 
supper, and the family dinner, were to be 
served on time. She would leave her hostess 
with laughing excuses, and come home won- 
dering if the trip andthe effort were worth 
while. Wasn't it really easier to stay in her 
cool gingham gown, and read or rest in the 
heat of the afternoon? Was it really true that 
one was liked for one’s intrinsic merit, that a 
woman on a small income could hold her. 
place with the richest and idlest of them if she 


would? 


78 UNEDUCATING MARY __ 


Mary presently gave up calling, and, as she 
and Billy were unwilling to accept hospitali- 
ties that they could not return, they began to 
see less and less of their old friends. It was 
one more unreal phase of an unreal existence 
for her. ‘That people would not flock to see 
the Billy Constables under any conditions was 
a genuine surprise to Mary. 

“It only shows that money is the real stan 
ard, and people come to you for what they can ~ 
get!’ she said to Billy, half-bitter, half- 
amused. 

“Well, I never thought they came for any- 
thing else!” Billy said tolerantly. “Why 
_ should they?”’ 

It was on the tip of Mary’s tongue to re- 
mark contemptuously, “It shows exactly what 
they're all worth—we’re well rid of them!” 
But she did not say it. She really did not 
want to see her old friends now, their atten- 
tions would have been only unwelcome and ~ 
inconvenient. More than that, she knew that 
they had not changed; it was the Constables 
who had changed. The simple loss of income 
had put them definitely into another class 
despite intellect and charm, despite all their 
advantages of education and former position. 


UNEDUCATING MARY 79. 


From amusement, Mary came to have a 
dull resentment at being placed so palpably at 
a disadvantage. It was not her fault that she 
Was poor; it was not her fault that life had 
changed so completely. And it was too hard 
that she should suffer it, should be ‘so helpless 
in the grip of circumstances! 

She looked about her, absolutely terrified to 
discover that poverty and patient endurance 
were on all sides. There was no picturesque 
and dramatic outlet, there was no spectacular 
fashion in which all this distressed dream 
might be dismissed asa dream! She had been 
the rich Mrs. Constable. She was a poor 
man’s wife now, worrying over the cost of 
butter, the rapidity with which her little boy 
wore out his shoes. And nobody cared! 

Poverty—but hadn’t there always seemed 
to be something wrong with people who were 
always poor? Something to criticize, some- 
thing at which to wonder, some quality to 
which one felt superior? Mary’s_ cheeks 
burned sometimes when she remembered her 
crisp criticisms of men who allowed their wives © 
to go on year in and year out without a serv- 
ant, who let younger men pass them in the 
business world. 


80 UNEDUCATING MARY 

And she thought with new understanding 
and pity of those women of her own old world, 
*“‘society women,’ who had struggled year 
out and year in to maintain the pretense of 
financial ease. Women, thought Mary, who 
had attempted so gallantly to replace with 
witty conversation and daring innovation the 
luxuries to which their guests were accus- 
tomed. And the guests, too often, saw 
through the pitiful little pretense and laughed 
at it, or despised it. 


To her, Mary, that game would never be 
worth its pains and disappointments. She 
was too proud to beg for what had been 
gladly offered her before, and too sensible to 
place any value upon friendships that were at 
their best so meaningless and vain. And at 
the same time, these considerations spurred 
her toward the realization of her old ambition 
to find some work that would relieve the 
financial strain and give her a chance to 
develop her own gifts. She was well edu-- 
cated, and she was self-reliant and energetic; 
she might win by her own efforts a place in a 
far more discriminating circle than any she and 
Billy had ever known. 


She gave some thought to the subject, 


weighing the advantages of one occupation 


over another, and suddenly, fired by en- 
thusiasm for this new plan to relieve the dis- 
tasteful situation, sat down and wrote a short 
sketch for a woman’s magazine, outlining 
some of her recent culinary discoveries and in- 


cluding the very modest: budget that she had 


been keeping for several months. ‘This dis- 
patched to a popular monthly, Mary cast 
about for some other outlet for her excess 
energy, and finally decided to go to see an 
acquaintance, a woman she much admired, 
who was superintendent of the city’s nicest 


‘private kindergartens. Before her college 


experience Mary had taught in this kindergar- 
ten for two successive terms with great suc- 
cess, but that was nearly ten years ago. 

She found Miss Montrose busy but friendly, 
glad to see Mrs. Constable, and to relax for a 
few minutes’ chat. 

“How are you supplied with teachers now?”’ 
Mary asked casually. 

“Oh, we have fifty on our waiting list,’ 
Miss Montrose laughed cheerfully. “Well, 


no! not fifty,’ she corrected herself. “But, 


you see, old-fashioned kindergartening isn’t 


UNEDUCATING MARY 8r_——™” 


haps. 43) 


go UNEDUCATING MARY 


as popular as it used to be. This new Italian 
method, you know, is really entirely dif- 
ferent, and almost all the girls are studying 
Cat.’ 

“But they’re still using Froebel in the — 
public schools?”? Mary asked, with a little 
sinking at her heart. 

“Yes, but there, of course, it’s really i 
mary Eade work,” 

Somewhat discouraged, Mary went nents 
but only a day or two later she took her cour- 
age boldly in both hands and went to see an 
architect with whom she and Billy had had 
some social as well as some business associa- 
tion, and who had always professed himself to 
be a great admirer of the charming Mrs. Con- 
stable. A year or two before, when the plans 
for a friend’s house were being drawn, Mary 
had shown herself to have a real instinct for 
designing and Mr. Webb, senior partner of 
Webb and Wilkinson, Architects, had person- 
ally congratulated her for her suggestions as 
to the economical arrangement of butler’s 
pantry and nursery bathroom. 

Mary found Mr. Webb in his delightful 
office and was warmly welcomed, but she 
could see that business of some sort was under 


/ + UNEDUCATING MARY 83,” 
way and made her call as businesslike as 
possible. 

“The truth is this, Mr. Webb,” she said 
frankly, when the first pleasantries had been 
exchanged, “‘Mr. Constable is working very 
hard just now and, although he hasn’t exactly 
said so, I know he isn’t extremely hopeful of 
reéstablishing the business of Constable and 
Son. So it has occurred to me that, if there zs 
any way in which I can help him, just tem- 
porarily, of course, I would be very glad to 
do it.” Mary was amazed and disgusted to 
find her voice slightly thickened by tears 
at this point, she did not quite know why. 
“Now, I don’t know whether you remem- 
ber our talks two years ago when the West- © 
cotts were building their house?’ she went 
on. 
“Perfectly!”” Mr. Webb said encourag- 
ingly. 

“Well,” said Mary boldly, “‘the final plan 
for that house was mine, and I remember that 
Mr. Wilkinson said that it was a really practi- 
cal one, and that he would keep a draft of it, in 
case that particular problem—it was to fit a 
very small lot, you remember ’—ever came up © 

again. And that made me wonder if, in an 


8; UNEDUCATING MARY 


office this size, you might not possibly have 


use for some person who really liked that sort — 


of work, and who could spare the time to fuss 
and plan and work over details.” ; 

Mr. Webb listened to her in smiling silence, 
his bright eyes never moving from her face. 
Then he leaned back in his revolving chair, — 
fitted his finger tips together, and said pleas- 
antly, in a leisurely drawl: 

“Mrs. Constable, of course that is one very 
important part of our business, very import- 
ant. And I need hardly say,’ he bowed, 
“that to put such work into your hands would 
be a great delight to me, a real pleasure. But— 
you see I have four boys here, five, with young 
Mr. Wilkinson, and such work as that is just 
what those boys are waiting for; in fact, it is 
what they studied architecture for, what they 
imagined they would have to do, chiefly. 
Now I don’t have to tell you, Mrs. Constable,” 
continued Mr. Webb, “that there is a good 
deal of grind in our business. I won't go into” 
details, but you may imagine that grading, and 
plumbing, and property rights, and street 
elevations, roofing, and installing furnaces, 
keeping our contractors up to their work, and 
fighting weather conditions, are all part of our 


“UNEDUCATING MARY 


work. Pretty tedious things to attend to! 


And that’s what I keep our boys ‘busy with, 
month out and in. So that when a little 
designing does come along, there isn’t one of 
them who isn’t glad enough to sharpen a pencil 


and settle down here in the office for a whole 


{>? 


morning! 


“T see,” Mary said bravely, managing a _ 


smile with unbelievable difficulty. “But I 
thought perhaps that—that there might be 
things that these boys couldn’t manage— 
things that a housewife,’ she added with some 
diffidence, “would understand better than a 
young man could! Of course I’ve had college 
training, Mr. Webb.” 

“Ah?” Mr. Webb said. “But of course 
_ you wouldn’t touch this sort of work in college. 
These boys of mine have taken some technical 
school work—that helps a little!’ 

_ Mary said nothing more of the hope with 
which she had entered the office, and after a 
few minutes of casual chat found herself in 
the street again. But her cheeks were burn- 


ing and an inexplicable sense ie defeat pos- 


sessed her. 


“Of course you wouldn’t touch this sort of © 
work in college!’”? His phrase came back © 


86  UNEDUCATING MARY — 
to her over and over again. Hadn’t she 
studied to any purpose? 

“Of course, | never studied architecture 
exactly, although I did take up designing,” 
she said to herself. “Those boys specialized, 
I suppose. But I went through college, and 
took twenty hours a week, and lots of these 
boys simply went into commercial school for a 
years course!’’ She walked on for a few 
blocks very swiftly. “I wonder what I did 
specialize in,’ she asked herself suddenly. 
“TI declare, I think all college work ought to be 
specialized!” she said. 

“Stenography,”’ she thought. ‘Why didn’t 
I take up stenography and typewriting?”’ 
But then, Billy would never have permitted 
her to take such a position. Indeed she was 
aware that diplomacy would be needed to rec- 
oncile Billy to her working at all. What did 
other women do? Opened tea-rooms, cooked 
for special patrons, sewed and embroidered, 
taught dancing or music. No—she could 
do none of these! Millinery was out of the 
question, New Troy was full of milliners; 
newspaper writing she knew she could not at- 
tempt. Boarders? Mary’s laugh ended in © 
a sigh; was she the sort of woman who could 


UNEDUCATING MARY 87 . 
do nothing more unusual than keeping board- _ 
ers? 

She began to pin her faith to the article she 
had sent to a magazine, and to plan a second 
article of the same nature. But over and 
over again the first one was returned by the 
different editors, who invariably explained 
that they had used, or were about to use, 
similar articles that they considered more 
practical and more generally useful. 

Mary felt baffled and profoundly dis- 
couraged. It seemed impossible to her that 
there was no escape from the sense of in- 
efficiency that made her so wretched. She 
had had six months of poverty; what did the 
women do who had years and years of it? 
She had one child; how did any one manage to 
take care of more? 

“What have I been learning all my life?” 
she asked herself unhappily. “What can I 
do?”’ 

A six-months’ course in something, that was 
the solution. But a six-months’ course in 
what? Mary finally gave the whole thing up 
in despair, and in doing so plunged herself into 
quite the saddest mood she had ever known. 

She would have made a good woman of busi- 


— 688 ~ UNEDUCATING MARY — 

ness, she knew. She would have made a 
splendid manager for.a children’s home; she 
could have traveled, giving lectures, like that 
lovely elderly woman in the plum-colored suit 
who had visited the club last year. But it 
was too late to take up those things now. 
She must resign herself to all the misery and 
privation of her present existence. 

Mary realized, for the first time in her life, 
that certain people could not afford certain 
things. Not because they wanted their money 
for something else, or wanted to save it on 
general principles, but simply because they did 
not have it! She had always felt that good 
management would accomplish any miracle; 
that delicious, if simple, dinners might be 
achieved by the most modest housewife, and 
that hospitality was merely a matter of taking 
pains. : 

Now she knew better. She knew that the 
“simple cup of hot tea,’ to which she might 
once have ‘cheerfully alluded as being within 
~ everyone’s reach, involved an expense for 
cream and lemons, and for bread and butter, 
and involved at least half an hour’s fussing 
in a summer-time kitchen as well. She knew: 
that a dinner-guest was a definite luxury not 


- UNEDUCATING MARY 8) ——™” 


_ always possible however much desired. Cook- 


” 


books might blithely suggest the embellishing 


of an ordinary dinner with a cream soup, a jar 
of preserves, and a cup of strong iced coffee; 
but if milk and cream, preserves and extra 
coffee did not chance 'to be in the house, the 
hostess was not materially aided by such sug- 
gestions. Mary learned what it was to step 
impulsively into a drug store for some old- 


time luxury, and be brought to a pause before 


buying it by the recollection that the money 
for it was actually not in her purse. 
' Beirg Mary, she talked to the grocer at the 
corner, calling his attention to the unob- 
trusive “compound” that followed the words 
*New Orleans Molasses’’ on his bottles, to 
the “Artificially Colored”’ jams, and the peas 
faintly labeled “with sulphate of copper.” 
She urged him to cover his fruit boxes with 
netting, and to keep his loaves in a glass 
case. | 
So the hot midsummer weeks dragged by. 
‘Mary and Billy saw very little of their old 
friends, and were satisfied with an occasional 
accidental encounter. A great many people 
were out of town—Mary herself had never 
been in town at this season before; she re- 


90 | UNEDUCATING MARY 


membered now that Billy had not got away at 
all last summer, and wondered that his failing 
to do so had made so little impression on her. 
She was secretly convinced that Anthony 
would be ill before the hot months were over, 
but on the contrary the little boy was very 
well, better than he had ever been in his life. 
Like all children, he was not deeply affected by 
the weather. 

Amy had gone on her honeymoon now, and 
Mrs. Throckmorton had taken her rather deli- 
cate husband to the mountains; but Mary's 
older sister, the widowed Anna Lou, was keep- 
ing the Throckmortons’ old home open and 
here Mary and Anthony often wandered in the 
long afternoons. Mary found an unexpected 
sympathy and affection developing between 
herself and her older sister. Anna Lou had 
never been particularly brilliant; she was a 
simple, loving woman, devoted to her hus- 
band’s memory and absorbed in her two beau- 
tiful little girls. Mary had sometimes felt © 
that Anna Lou accepted circumstances too 
meekly, made the best of inconveniences with 
which a more forceful nature would have done 
away.’ But now she had come in contact 
with unmanageable trials herself, and she 


1h Wie 9 ih ASSEN, ie Dao hy Tee 
f) i | + =e oh CRM Apia i 
rt peates Re, WS Are aor 4 fj iy ips 
ae 1 ave reo Sa ee 
ee) yf wine | 


_ began to have a great respect for the sweet and 
sunny Anna. 

“You mustn’t say to yourself, ‘What do 
I absolutely need?’”’? Mrs. Penne said smil- 
ingly. ‘You must put it this way, ‘What can 
I afford?’ One can live without desserts, you 
know; one can live without meat, very com- 
fortably indeed! And when you have cut 
down desserts and meat, and still the in- 
come isn’t adequate, you have to go to other 
_ things; no butter if you have gravy, for in- 
stance, and no salad if you happen to be out 
of oil!” 

“But that’s actual need!” exclaimed Mary. 

“Oh, no, indeed it’s not!” her sister said. 
*I think the only need is when you get into 
debt; then you really do feel poor and squalid 
and all the rest of it! As long as my actual 
cash came out even, or if I had a penny left, at 
the end of the week, I never felt anything but 
proud and happy. I remember once Dad 
gave me a really handsome bureau outfit for 
Christmas,’ Anna Lou went on smilingly, 
“but, as it happened, I didn’t need a mirror, or 
a brush and comb; so I asked him if he minded 
my changing them, and of course he was only 
too glad fe 


UNEDUCATING MARY or) 


| oo UNEDUCATING MARY We 


“But, Sis,’ Mary objected, “surely a gift is 
in the spirit, and not in the actual need! V’ve 
never Changed . | 

“Gifts among very rich people may be,” 
Anna Lou laughed. “But I assure you that, 
at that time, Dick and I were not eligible for — 
the income tax! Well, I took the brushes back 
to Fordham’s—luckily a drug store, and, my 
dear, I proceeded to buy things that Dick and 
I hadn’t had for the five years of our married 
life! Fine soaps, powders, writing paper, 
tooth paste, things for the babies—it was an 
orgy! And when I had finished the clerk 
said, ‘This comes to only eleven dollars, 
madam; would you like the other nine in cash?’ 
Cashr I felt like kissing her then and there! 
I went out and got Nancy and ’Lizabeth new 
stockings, and bought myself shoes, and took 
Dick home an alligator pear i 

And suddenly Anna Lou, who had been Ont 
ing, put her face into her hands and burst into 
tears. Mary’s arms were instantly about her, 
but the young widow cried unrestrainedly for 
perhaps five minutes. 

“TI can’t help this, I know it’s silly!’’ Anna 


Lou said presently with atrembling lip. “But 


we were so happy! Ten years, Mary, of the 


UNEDUCATING MARY ‘Bae 
best and sweetest and strongest man that ever 
lived, and the wisest! Well,” she straightened 
herself and wiped her eyes, “it is something 
to have had it,” said Anna Lou bravely, “to 
know that he was happy, and that he thought 
himself the most fortunate man in the world 
and me the best wife!” 

“But how did you ever learn to be such a 
good housekeeper, Anna Lou?” Mary asked 
simply. “You never would read books on 
domestic economics, efficiency, household bud- 
gets, and all that!”’ : 

“T should hope not!’ Anna answered, 
laughing. “That’s all theory. But there’s 
not much to the best of them!”’ 

The blood rushed to Mary’s face and she 
was glad that Anna kept her eyes on the apron 
she was making for ’Lizabeth, and that the 
topic was presently changed. Theory, in- 
deed! Why, where would books and colleges 
and scientists be without theory! 

But some of her sister’s words haunted her 
as she went home with Anthony in the slanting 
rays of the sunset. “He was happy, and he 
felt himself the most fortunate man in the 
world, and me the best wife!” Mary felt a 
faint thrill of envy for Anna Lou; she won- 


04 UNEDUCATING MARY 

dered if Billy had ever thought of herself and 
his home as perfect, even in the old days. A 
first sick little premonition of self-distrust be- 
gan to shake her. Circumstances were fright- 
fully against her now, of course. But—but 
they had been against Anna Lou, too, and 
not for months only, for long hard years and 
years! And Anna Lou burst into tears at the 
memory of them, tears of longing and of grief. 
Could it be possible that Anna Lou was— 
wiser than Mary? Even poor and widowed, 
had Anna Lou made the greater success of her 
life? | 
For once she accepted facts without at- 
tempting to account for them or tabulate 
them, and entered her own gate with a quicker 
step and a brighter face than she had worn for 
months. Billy, the picture of penitence, met 
her at the door. 

“Say, Gregory’s here for supper, Mary,” 
he said in a quick aside. “His train doesn’t 
leave until ten o’clock, and I’ve not seen him 
since college! I had to ask him. MHe’s up- 
stairs, washing his hands. Drika sounds like 
a henhouse out there; and from what she 
showed me we'll have to eat the candles! But 
it was just one of those cases Ki 


J Sl OME PARR cd cule ti? st 20) (PRR LT aco 
+ tN . 1} i 4 , 
. | 


‘UNEDUCATING MARY —os——™ 


““Why, that’s all right!” Mary said pleas- 
antly, to her husband’s mingled amazement 
and relief. “You go keep him amused, and 
I’ll see what can be done. It’s stew, and not 
much of that; but I’ll poach eggs on top and 
stuff the potatoes! There’s a lemon for 
iced tea.” 

“Would a little money help you out?” 
asked Billy, fervently grateful. His wife fixed 
him with amused and tolerant eyes. : 

“A little money? My dear boy—have you 
any money?” 

“T have a dollar,” said Billy, eagerly pro- 
ducing it. “I lunched with Greg to-day and 
with Forbes, about that business, yesterday.” 
: “Ah, well, then!’? Mary assured him con- 

fidently. “We'll have some grapefruit and 
some berries! I’ll send Drika, if you can 
amuse your man!” | 

“We'll walk down to the river and take the 
kid along,’ Billy said, and before leaving he 
added, ‘‘ Mary, you’re a wonder!” 

She had heard the phrase all her life. She 
had surely done more wonderful things than 
rush a company dinner together on a hot Au- 
gust night. Yet Mary, entering her kitchen for 
the fray, glowed from head to foot with the joy 


96. UNEDUCATING MARY 


of being praised. Only what a million other 
wives were doing the country over; only, as she 
had often said, what any intelligent “menial” 
could do, yet what energy and enthusiasm she 
brought to it! 

They had once or twice tried the experiment 
of having dinner-guests before in the River 
Street house, with conspicuous umsuccess. 
Mary had been too conscious of the change in 
dinner and service to be a gracious hostess, 
and too tired from the actual labor involved 
in getting dinner ready to take much interest 
in its consumption. But to-night she was 
really her charming and interested self once 
more; there were no apologies, there was 
really nothing for which to apologize. It 
amused her to see that her guest could not. 
reconcile the cheap house and the flustered 
maid with his old chum’s cheerfulness and the 
personality of his old chum’s wife. Hand- 
some, composed, and entertaining, she took 
the head of the table, and they were still at 
table when Mr. hee found that he must 
hurry for his train. 

Drika had gone to bed, but Mary and Billy 
cleared away the dishes and straightened the 
dining-room. A dozen times Billy expressed 


Lis reo e y ; t ty 
ey 


UNEDUCATING MARY OF, 
his appreciation and pleasure, but Mary was 
rather quiet. 

“Why so silent?” he asked at last. 

“TI don’t know,” Mary said, smiling dream- 
ily. “Just thinking—I was thinking that six 
months ago | thought I was a good manager 
because I could say to Delia ‘Eight for dinner,’ 
and ask Louise to have artichokes and some- 
thing frozen for dessert!” 


CHAPTER IV 


HE fell upon a silent time, brooding, 

weighing, and measuring, comparing the 
old viewpoint with the new. Sometimes she 
smiled over her thoughts, more often the 
conscious blood rushed to her face at some 
memory that filled her now with an amused 
shame. 

“Being poor ought to be a part of every 
young person’s education,’ she said to Billy, 
after a particularly enlightening day. 

“Think how that course would be cut!” 
Billy answered cheerfully. 

Theoretically, her life in the River Street 
house was entirely deplorable. 

Theoretically, yes. But actually the state 
had its compensations. She was well, Billy 
was well, Anthony was miraculously well. 
When the first exquisite days of September 
came to cool the burning earth, when Amy 
came back, full of her own domestic ambitions 
and ready for her own unavoidable mistakes, 
Mary began to feel stirring within herself a 

98 | 


UNEDUCATING MARY 99 
certain joy of living that. was as unexpected 
as it was delightful. Had she never noticed 
before how wonderful September was? Where 
had she been last September to miss the 
delicious crispness of the early mornings, the 
golden clearness of the lingering afternoons! 
Sometimes she and Billy took Anthony down 
to the river bank, to watch the screaming boys 
that were always splashing somewhere within 
sight, and the lumber tugs that went so slowly 
_ down the current, and the ducks that swam 
and quacked and dabbled among the reeds. __ 

“Why didn’t we ever do this at home?” 
Billy asked lazily one afternoon, as he skim- 
med flat stones for his ecstatic son. Cathe- 
dral Avenue was always “home”’ to the Con- 
stables.) 

*Well—I always thought the river was un- 
wholesome, somehow,’’ Mary answered slowly. 
*‘And then Nurse liked to go up to the Park 
and see the other nurses, and I never had very 
much time in the garden.” 

She tried to remember what had given her, 
in those days of incredible leisure, the sensa- 
tion that she had no time to spare. Nowa- 
days she knew the value of time! Every hour 
of the day had its predestined occupation, 


po 


100 UNEDUCATING MARY 


and she dared not drop the domestic reins — 


for so much as one idle afternoon. She 


put Anthony to bed now, a task strangely 
nerve-racking at first, but of late surprisingly 
enjoyable. His confidences, his little gaye- 
ties and minute depressions, the touch of his 
warm little fragrant face after his bath, the 
damp rich curls of his hair, redolent of soap, 
his dancing and rushing about, all began to 
hold a charm for his mother. 
It was through Anthony that several more 
of her cherished theories were routed, although 
the sheer terror of the occasion banished all 
other considerations for some days afterward. 
Anthony had a touch of croup one cool No- 
vember evening, and his mother opened her 
reference books to discover exactly how mod- 
ern science dealt with the nursery horror. 
“For it certainly is croup,’ she said to — 
Billy, when they sat under the reading lamp 
that evening pretending that the little hoarse 
cough that came occasionally from the upper > 
regions did not strike both their hearts cold. 
“Well, it’s a croupy cold,” Billy admitted, 
with a father’s reluctance to consider his child 
susceptible to any of the ills of babyhood. . 
“Tl tell you what!’ he exclaimed suddenly. 


UNEDUCATING MARY tor 


**T’ll go down to the drug store, and telephone 
Doctor Hubbard, and then in case he really 
does choke up a bit, why, we'll be ready for 
him!” 

“Oh, I wish you would!’’ Mary said eag- 
erly, and Billy departed forthwith. “You're 
awfully good, Billy—you’re so tired!” she 
added gratefully. 

He came back with a reassuring message 
from the doctor and a small bottle of ipecac. 

“Hubbard asked if we had a croup kettle,” 
said Billy, “and I said no. He said it wasn’t 
really necessary, and of course the drug store 
didn’t have one, so we'll have to get along 
without it to-night! But if Anthony’s going 
to be croupy, we'll have to get one.” 

“1 don’t believe he’s going to have a bad 
night,’ Mary said, “he hasn’t coughed once 
since you went out.” And later, just before 
getting into bed, she went to Anthony’s crib 
and watched the littlesleeper fora fewminutes. 
*He’s breathing heavily, but he seems sound 
-asleep,” she reported to Billy. “I daresay 
we re having all this worry for nothing!” 

An hour or two later, however, they both 
were awakened by a sound from the crib, and. 
in a second in the terrifying darkness and the 


102 UNEDUCATING MARY — 
night the full horror of croup was upon them. — 
Mary, lighting the gas with trembling fingers, 
found Billy already lifting the choking baby 
from his little bed. 

“Keep him warm!” she gasped, snatching a 
blanket to wrap about the child. Terror 
clutched her heart like a clutching hand. 

““There—there—there, old scout, cough it 
up for Dad!” Billy muttered, very white, and 
with agonized eyes on the little convulsed face. 
The frightful knowledge that seconds were 
precious, and they were helpless, smote both 
father and mother at once. Mary’s voice, in 
spite of her instinctive effort not to lose self- 
control, rose almost to a scream. 

“Oh, my God, Billy, he’s dying! Oh, 
dearest, can’t you—for Mother, my darling! 
Oh, Billy, Billy, Billy, what shall we do!” 

“Get that stuff!’’ Billy shouted, in a tone 
almost as frantic as her own. 

“Oh, yes, I forgot it!’’ Mary sobbed, run- 
ning intothe bathroom. She came flying back 
with the bottle of ipecac and a spoon. 

“Be sure it’s right!’’ Billy warned her. 

“Oh, yes—yes—yes!”’ She turned the label 
for him to read, and began to measure drops 
into a shaking spoon. 


UNEDUCATING MARY 103, 
“Quicker, dear!” Billy said. “He said 


{?? 


three teaspoonfuls 

“Oh, he couldn’t!’? Mary exclaimed in 
agony as a fresh paroxysm of choking made 
Anthony writhe in his father’s arms. “Here 
on the bottle it says, ‘Infants, ten to twenty 
drops. One to four years, forty drops.’ Oh, 
Billy, I daren’t give him more! It must bea 
poison, or else narcotic!” 

““He’s going!’ Billy said in a hollow tone, 
and indeed the little boy’s face was dark with 
blood, and a choked moaning stabbed both 
parents with an agony such as they had never 
known before. 

“OQ God—help him, help him!” sobbed 
Mary, falling on her knees. “My little, little 
- boy—if only Mother could take it for you!” 

“Don’t!” Billy said hoarsely, even now 
finding a free arm to put about her. 

It was at this instant that the door was 
abruptly opened and that Drika ran into the 
room. She held a teaspoon in one hand and, 
pushing Mary aside, she knelt down beside 
Anthony. i 

“Here, queek!”’ she said, putting the spoon 
into the child’s mouth. “Eat it! So-o-o, © 
poor boy!”” murmured Drika, as with sput- 


TOs UNEDUCATING MARY 
tering and protest the dose went down. 
“Now ae | 

She flew for Anthony’s little white enamel 
basin, with the geese and the goose-girl walk- 
ing round it, and it was needed, for Billy now 
held in his arms a very much nauseated little 
boy. And when the nausea was over and 
Mary had wiped the damp little forehead with 
Florida water, and Anthony was sweet in clean 
blue pajamas, the croup was gone. Wearily, 
deliciously, the invalid sank off to sleep, and 
wearily and deliciously Mary cried upon her 
husband’s shoulder. 

“What was it that you gave him, Drika?”’ 
Billy asked when his voice was quite under 
control, and the three seniors were talking in 
undertones in the dimly lighted room. 

Drika showed a bottle of white vaseline, her 
face one radiant smile. 

“Hot,” she explained. “I hear coughs,” 
Drika coughed violently in illustration, “so 
I run keetchen, because my brother—yes, 
too!’’ By which the Constables understood 
that, hearing Anthony cough, Drika, remem- 
bering what was done, when her little brother 
coughed, in far-away Riisoord, had run to the 
kitchen to heat a spoonful of vaseline. She 


’ ‘ 


UNEDUCATING MARY 105 
went on to remind the parents that Anthony 
had had several biscuits with jelly for his 
dinner, assuring them that croup never fol- 
lowed anything but a too-heavy dinner and 
managed to convey to Mary a request that 
they have a goose for dinner some evening in 
the near future and save some of the healing 
grease for another such occasion. 

Well, I'll get a croup kettle to-morrow!”’ Bil- 
ly said, with a long, deep sigh of relief. “And 
I'll have Hubbard run out and look at him!”’ 

‘Morning, however, found Anthony as gay 
as a lark, racing about the backyard before © 
breakfast, and insatiable as tooatmeal. Mary 
had planned to spend the whole day with him 
at her mother’s, and after a little discussion it 

was decided that Doctor Hubbard need not be 
called in to-day. 

“That’s the whole situation, Mary,” said 
her mother a few hours later, when the mid- 
night scarce was being discussed in the Throck- 
mortons’ comfortable sitting-room. “TI al- 
ways used to feed you children very lightly 
at night, and perhaps rub your chests with a 
_ little oil of camphor if you were at all croupy. 
Just a little common sense is better for children 
than a hundred doctors.”’ 


(4306 UNEDUCATING MARY 


“T begin to think that common sense is just _ 
what I haven’t got!’’ Mary said soberly. 

Her mother glanced at her quickly, ready to 
laugh. But there was no mirth in Mary’s 
eyes. 

“And the point is, what did I go to college 
for?’’ she asked Whale and without 
waiting for her mother to answer she went on: 
“Billy, now, that’s another thing. Nobody 
could be more, well, more ordinary, in a Cet- 
tain way, than Billy 4 

“Oh, Mary, you can’t say that!’’ her mother 
protested. “Billy is one of the dearest boys 
that ever lived!” : 

“Well, but you know how I mean. Billy’s 
just the average,’ Mary persisted. “Not a 
student, not intellectual, fond of just the things 
all men are fond of—Mother, don’t look so dis- 
approving,’ she interrupted herself to say 
laughingly. “I’m not depreciating Billy! But 
you know what I mean!”’ 

“TI don’t know what you mean,” said 
Mrs. Throckmorton, with unusual firmness. 
“Billy Constable, to my thinking and to your 
father’s thinking, too, is a very unusual fellow! 
For a rich man’s son he was the steadiest and 
simplest boy I ever saw, and I thought it was 


17? 


UNEDUCATING MARY 107 


just characteristic of his good sense to fallin. 


love with you instead of some rich girl who 
would have cared only for his money!” 

For several reasons this speech was su- 
premely unpalatable and very astonishing to 
Mary, but she could not say so. Indeed, she 
laughed a little. | 

“Well, Mother dear,” she said demurely, 
“I married him, didn’t I? Doesn’t that indi- 
cate some little approval on my part?”’ 

“Oh, yes, indeed I know you loved him, 
Mary,’ Mrs. Throckmorton said hastily. | 

“Loved him!” Mary echoed, with a pecu- 
liar smile. The color rushed to her face. 
“Why the past tense’?”’ she asked. 

“Well, you know what I mean,” Mrs. 
Throckmorton said in her turn, with a con- 
fused laugh and a little rise of conscious color 
herself. 

““He’s—he’s never studied these things,” 
Mary went on, after an uncomfortable mo- 
ment of silence, “yet it’s remarkable to me 
how many emergencies Billy rises to! Now, 
when we first moved he packed and he planned; 
he seemed to know just how to treat the ex- 
pressmen and what to expect of them! And 
then, getting settled, so many times when | — 


LOST A Cire. ei ud 


108 UNEDUCATING MARY 


really would have sent for a special workman 
of some sort, or given a thing up, Billy put- 
tered away and did things! I remember he 
started the clock, when | wanted to send for an 
expert from Bruce’s, and he got down on his 
knees and painted all those awful margins 
each side of the stair carpet! And he found 
the house, you know, and really, Mother, al- 
though it’s a hideous place and I shall always 
loathe and detest it, it has served our par-— 
ticular purpose pretty well. It’s sunny and 
quiet, and too far away for people to come 
poking about and bother us, and we ve all been 
extraordinarily well there—I must say that. 
The only two scarces that we’ve had,” poor 
Mary admitted with a little laugh, “were the 
croup last night and the time Anthony ate a 
green apple in the Deetles’ backyard and 
Drika cured him of colic with dairy cheese.” 
** Dairy cheese?’ said Mrs. ‘Throckmorton. 
“Yes, just pot-cheese, made of sour milk. 
He couldn’t keep anything else on his stomach, 
and that agreed with him right away. And 
Billy telephoned to Hubbard, and he said that _ 
it’s one of the very recent discoveries for sum- © 
mer complaint; nothing could be better.” 
“But how did Drika know that?”’ 


2y 
it PRE 


UNEDUCATING MARY 109 


“T don’t know; perhaps she didn’t know it. 
Perhaps it’s some old-country remedy that has 
been used for years. Anyway, it was wonder- 
ful, and I’ve told it to two or three other 
women, just neighbors there, and it works 
every time.” 

“Well, live and learn,’ Mrs. Throckmorton 
said resignedly. “I’ve had six children and 
raised four, and I never heard that before!” 

‘Live and learn,’ Mary repeated. *But, 
Mother,’ she resumed suddenly, “isn’t a 
college education worth anything?” 

“In what way?’’ Mrs. Throckmorton asked 
in surprise. She had not followed the current 
of Mary’s thoughts. 

“Well,” Mary said, again growing a little 
red, “we used to say that at college we learned 
to live. And lately I’ve been wondering just 
how much we learned to live. Certainly I 
didn’t learn much, much, I mean, that was of 
practical use to me when the real test came!” 

“Well, I always felt it was—was a perfectly 
safe place for you, dear,” her mother explained. 
“And that you loved it, fond of study as you 
were, and that it couldn’t hurt you and would 
give you a little prestige among the other girls. 
In fact, Mary,” she added, a little hesitat- 


110  UNEDUCATING MARY 


ingly, “I really didn’t think very much about 
that part of it; | knew you wanted to go, and 
Dad and I were both only too glad to have you 
do what interested and gratified you.” 

Mary was speechless with mortification for 
several minutes. Meanwhile, tea was brought 
in by Mrs. Throckmorton’s faithful old facto- 
tum, and Anthony, instinctively attracted, 
came up to see what delicacies flanked the tea- 
pot. 
“Well, it is certainly gratifying,’ Mary 
presently observed, with a dry laugh, “to 
realize that everybody about you has been 
thinking you a foolish theorist for years and 
years. If this is all college counts for, I might 
as well never have gone!” 


CHAPTER V 


ILLY’S birthday came early: in January 
; and Mary, after long hours of worry, 
came to the discouraged conclusion that she 
could not make him a “real’’ present. Neces- 
sities had never seemed to have a true holiday 
flavor to the Throckmortons, and a gift was 
‘usually something luxurious and unexpected, 
something with a little tang of extravagance 
to give it spice. 

But this year there could be no extrava- 
gance. Five tons of coal had been put into 
the Constables’ cellar, against the long winter, 
and Anthony had demanded flannel underwear 
and overshoes and a new reefer, with cheerful 
disregard of the cost thereof. 

Last year, Mary remembered, she had given 
her husband his mahogany auto-valet; there 
had been a dinner party of twelve, with toasts 
and much formality. Mary had been secretly 
disappointed that evening, she remembered 
now, because there was a symphony concert 
in town, which she had to forego. And Billy 


Iit 


112. UNEDUCATING MARY 


had been angry because his father had not 
been asked! | 

Ah, well! ‘That was one thing she could do — 
this year. Anthony Constable had been ~ 
living at his club since his handsome old home 
had been turned over to his creditors in the 
spring; he must be tired of club cooking by 
this time. Mary reproached herself that she 
had not made an effort to see him oftener; he ~ 
had always been very good to her. 

Now she determined to ask him to Billy’s 
birthday dinner. And little Anthony should 
be allowed to sit up with the family, as a 
special treat. [he menu she began eagerly to 
_plan, just the dishes she and Drika were ab- 
solutely sure of; the bean soup that Billy had — 
said he would get up in the middle of the night 
to eat; the panned oysters that had proved 
such an unexpected success, and the grape- 
fruit salad that was a real treat, and black 
coffee in the silver percolator, and the candles 
in their silver sticks ! 

Then, while there could be no real gift, there 
were several little things that Billy needed’ 
that would make him laugh at least. He 
needed a bottle of ink, and six pairs of new 
socks, and a stick of his favorite shaving soap. 


~ UNEDUCATING MARY 1T3 
And, since pickled walnuts were his favorite 
_ delicacy, he should have a big bottle of them. 


And Mary put a new film in her camera and 
posed Anthony for a dozen careful pictures, to 


~ be mounted in a little cartridge-paper book. 


She hunted up the old lamp of which Billy 
had been especially fond, cleaned it herself 
and put it in order, and she and Drika secreted 
it in the kitchen closet with much laughter, 
to be produced as a surprise on the birthday 
night. 


“Going my way, Dad?’’ Billy said in sur- 
prise on his birthday evening, when his father 
turned the first corner of the walk home. This 
was where the old man and the young usually 
separated after the office day. 

“Why, yes, I am!’”’ Anthony the elder said, 
as if surprised. 

“Good for you!”’ Billy said heartily. They 
returned to the talk of the day, talk more 
cheerful than it had been for some time, for 
Constable and Son was slowly but surely com- 
ing into its own again. It was a cold evening 
with a restless wind that tasted of snow; at 
six o'clock the streets were quite dark. But 
the two men walked along cheerfully enough, 


1144 UNEDUCATING MARY, 


their great coats buttoned snugly to their — 
chins, their hats pulled over their eyes. 

“Say, where do you think you're going?” 
Billy demanded suddenly, beginning to sus- 
pect something unusual as his father showed 
no sign of leaving him. 

“Don’t you worry,” his father said. “I’m 
celebrating something that gave your mother 
and me a good deal of pleasure thirty years 
ago.” 

Billy grinned suddenly. 

“Ts that right?’ he asked. “Did at ask 
you to come to dinner!” 

‘Asked me in person,’’ his father said. 

“Well, I call that great!” the younger man 
said in immense satisfaction. “That tickles 
me! She might have known that nothing in 
the world would give me more pleasure.” 

“She looked mighty pretty, and she seemed 
very happy,” his father said. “All the pri- 
vation you youngsters have been through 
doesn’t seem to have affected Mary.” | 

“‘She’s—nicer than she ever was lately,” 
Billy said, with a sort of laughing shyness. 
“It’s been a wonderful year for me. I don’t 
pretend that I like to have as little money as 
we have just now, and a wildcat like Drika for 


PS ACE SIE SE Ae MeN AME MATTE RNC Bic Mi may ae Miter aL aC OU DY 
POND MENTE SOM Mere eral is i frie GP. ok ve bh 
he ‘ Are ya Ze hek oStat boot pal ke ate (Ol bea nave 
DST Niall Wert 


¥ hie t 
SN ea eg Oe Bn, i 
eee 
nyt 


-UNEDUCATING MARY 116 


ourvonly maid, and the care of the furnace up 
tome. But I do certainly feel as if Mary and 
the kid belonged to me now; we—well, I can’t 

explain it, especially to you, for you and 
Mother always were rich, but somehow we’ve 
all gotten together this year.” 

“I can see what you mean,” said Anthony 
Constable. “Well, so much the luckier you, 
William. Some men are married for years,’ 
he repeated, “without knowing what that is.” 


_ The River Street house, when they reached 
it, sent shafts of ruddy light from a half a 
dozen hospitable windows, and before they 
could ring Mary and little Anthony opened 
the door. Silhouetted against the warmly 
lighted hall, Mary’s white ruffles and the 
child’s bright head and dancing little figure 
made a picture of welcome; Mary gave her 
husband a birthday kiss, and little Anthony 
sprang into his grandfather’s arms. They all 
went into the little sitting-room, where the 
resurrected lamp sent a not too merciless light 
upon the unlovely wall paper. Beyond, the 
dining-table shone with delicate candlelight, 
and red roses in a silver bowl glowed against 
the setting of white and silver. Anthony sat. 


116 UNEDUCATING MARY 
in dignity opposite his grandfather; husband 


and wife smiled at each other across the small 


round table. | 

And the dinner was wonderful! Mary 
needed no further testimony than the empty 
plates that she had to refill, but her carefully 
planned menu had a hundred spoken compli- 
ments as well. Billy had pink ice cream and 
a birthday cake flaming with candles— 
delicious bits of nonsense that somehow, ac- 
companied by Mary’s eager and laughing look, 
brought a blur to his eyes and a thickness to 
his throat. The cramped little room with its 
ugly windows and painted floor suddenly took — 
on new beauty. Happiness sometimes chooses — 
a queer lodging, and Billy realized to-night 
that his was one of the happy homes of the 
world. 

While they loitered, talking, over their 
cheese and coffee, of wonderful changes that 
must be made in this room and throughout 
the house during the coming year, Billy all 
eagerness, Mary’s fine eyes thoughtful and 
satisfied, the older man watching them with 
something like wistful amusement, little An- 
thony slipped from his chair and went into the 
kitchen. 


A TY ODN CR 
f as. <5 


UNEDUCATING MARY ~— 117 
“Where’s the infant going?’’ asked Billy. 
- “T don’t know,” Mary said, smiling, “but I 
fancy he and Drika have some little scheme of 
their own. We'll see in a moment.” 
A moment later the kitchen door was opened 


and, with a shout of laughter from both, Drika 


and Anthony came in. Anthony, in baggy 
blue trousers and wooden shoes, was the most 
delicious little Dutchman ever seen, and Drika 
was in full holiday regalia, her skirt partly © 
covered with a gayly colored apron, and on her 
head a wonderful cap of lawn with gold knobs 
at her temples. 

Anthony puiled out his wide trousers for a 
deep bow, and suddenly his astonished parents 


_ found themselves listening to a birthday greet- 


ing, wholly incomprehensible as to words, be- 


~ cause in Dutch, but unmistakable as to mean- 


ing. Drika’s face during this performance 
was a study in joy and pride; the recitation 
ended with shrieks of delight. Then Drika 
solemnly presented her employer with a round 
blue bowl in which exquisite tulips were 
blooming, and made a little speech of her own. 


‘This was supposedly in English, but Mary had 


to interpret it, tears of bright laughter in her 


_ eyes. 


118 UNEDUCATING MARY 


“She says that her father and mother, in 
Riisoord, are drinking your health to-night, 
Billy,’ translated Mary. “The bulbs came 
from her own garden at home, and were raised 
in her sister’s kitchen.” 

“Well, gosh!’ Billy said simply, “I never 
—not since I was a kid—had such a nice 
birthday! You—you are very kind, Drika, — 
and I’m much obliged. Do you get me?” 

Much laughter seemed to imply that Drika 
did. After having kissed her fellow performer 
rapturously, she withdrew to the kitchen, from 
which bursts of laughter still proceeded un- 
checked at two-minute intervals. 

“That’s no joke about the _ birthday,” 
Billy said seriously, when the guest was gone 
and he and his wife were alone. “I’ve always 
liked celebrations; I love surprises and fuss! 
Let’s always do things like this, cakes with can- 
dles on them, you know, and—and’’—his eyes 
wandered to his presents ranged on his bureau 
—and shaving-soap, don’t you know?” 

“Oh, Billy, you are nothing but a baby 
Mary laughed. “No, but I agree with you,” 
she added quickly. “It really is fun.”’ 

“And you don’t think it’s silly?” he asked 
wistfully. “You don’t quite hate this place, 


(7? 


ie i eas ; ‘ 
; ike 


UNEDUCATING MARY 119. 


do you, Mary? You—you like some things 
about River Street, and Drika, and living ona 
hundred a month, don’t you?”’ 

His arms were about his wife now and 
Mary’s hands resting on his shoulders. She 
raised her honest, beautiful eyes to his. 

“It isn’t River Street, and a hundred a 
month, and a stupid little Dutch girl,” she 
said thoughtfully. “It’s home and you, and 
the baby, and the feeling that I’ve a real little 


friend and ally in the kitchen. It’s really — 


_ living, Billy, and of course ’m happy. Even 
if we went back to Cathedral Avenue to- 
morrow, things never could be as they were; 
I never would let Drika go. And as for 


birthdays, we'll celebrate them all; we'll have _ 


Christmas parties and Thanksgiving parties 
for the family, and birthday sprees for you and 
me and Anthony, and his little sister and his 
little brother of 

“Ah, you darling!’ Billy gave his wife a 
kiss before she slipped quietly into the next 
room to look at the sleeping child. When she 
came back he was standing staring dreamily 
out of the window at River Street piled roughly 
with snow and the river slipping along under 
the cold winter stars. 


120 UNEDUCATING MARY 


“You know,” he said, with his odd whimsi- — 
cal smile, as Mary joined him. “I am begin- 
ning to agree with three-fourths of the pop- 


ulation of New Troy, and think that my edu- — 


cated wife is a most extraordinary woman.” 

““Educated!’? Mary echoed, with her grave 
laugh. “Would you call ,her that now, 
Billy? Uneducated—dis-educated—is more 
my idea of her.”’ 


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KATHLEEN NORRIS 


3 KATHLEEN NoRRIS upsets all our ac- 


cepted ideas of how a novelist is made. 
Busy helping to care for her orphaned sisters, 


the young girl was far too occupied with earn- 


ing bread and butter to dream of fairy tales. 
She was learning the realities of life as they 
are taught in the school of adversity and these 
lessons of her most impressionable years have 
colored all her work. For the characters in 
Mrs. Norris’s books are real people with real 


problems and an atmosphere of actuality. 


Mrs. Norris was born and spent her early 
life in San Francisco. Forced by a series of: 
financial misfortunes coming just after her 


father’s death, to find employment, she began 


with a hardware firm at a salary of thirty 
dollars a month. It was not until 1904 when 
she was barely twenty-three that her literary 
ambitions bore fruit. Her first successful 
effort was a story entitled, “The Colonel and 
the Lady,’ which was accepted by The 
Argonaut of San Francisco and for which she 
received $15.50. At that time, Mrs. Norris 
held the position of librarian in the Mechan- 
ics’ Library and was able to devote more of 
her time to writing. From this position she 
went into settlement work but later went to 
the Evening Bulletin as Society Editor and 
still later as a reporter on the San Francisco 
Call. 

After many weary months of returned 


KATHLEEN NORRIS 


manuscripts one of her stories fell into the 
hands of Mr. Ellery Sedgwich, editor of the 
Atlantic Monthly. ‘The editor’s letter of ac- 
ceptance read as follows: 


Dear Mrs. Norris: 


‘The readers report that, delightful as this story is, it 
is “not quite in our tone.” ‘The feeling of the Atlantic 
is, that when a tale is as intimately true to life as this is 
of yours, the tone is surely a tone for the Atlantic to 
adopt. 

It gives us much pleasure to accept so admirable a 
story. ? 
( Very ee yours, 

THE Eprror. 


Success came rapidly and since that time 
she has had stories published in McClure’s 
Magazine, Delineator, VW oman’s Home Com- 
panion, Good Housekeeping, Pictorial Re- 
view and nearly every other large magazine 
in the country. ; 

Rupert Hughes said recently when speak- 
ing of one of Mrs. Norris’s most successful 
books, ‘‘Certain People of Importance”’: 

“A mong the living Californians, Kathleen 
Norris is among the most. successful. She 
married into the name of Norris, but she 
brought a dowry as rich as that of the Colonial 
bride whose father stood her in the scales and 
balanced her with gold. | 

“Mrs. Norris’s brother-in-law, Frank,wrote 
novels that are always classics. Her husband, 


KATHLEEN NORRIS 


Charles G. Norris, is the author of two, ‘Salt’ 
and ‘Brass,’ both of which have been accepted 
as works of the highest quality. 

“Kathleen Norris’s books have probably 
outsold those of her men-folk for she is one of 
those women who are astonishing and terrify- 
ing the males by their enormous money- 
making abilities. 

“It is stated that Mrs. Norris refused an 
offer of $30,000 for the serial rights of her 
most recent novel, and it may well be believed. 
She can afford—she could hardly afford not to 


to write one book for the book’s sake, with- 


out taking thought of the skeletonic construc- 


tion demanded of a serial. She devoted four 


years, they say, to the writing of ‘Certain 
People of Importance,’ and the work shows 
infinite research. 

‘The novel is a grand canvas peopled with 
figures. It depicts a long family whose last 
member is important to the author because the 
family is of California. And what is im- 
portant to a skilled author is important to a 
skilled reader. 

“T feel sure that Kathleen Norris’s name 
will be one for future scholars to doff their 
mortarboards to, because she lives life, reads 
people, and writes folks. 

“This novel is rather a mosaic than a can- 
vas, made up of an amazing number of indi- 


vidual lives, into one great scheme. 


“Big as the monumental work may be, it 
yf 


KATHLEEN NORRIS 


has nothing of the ponderous or the dismal. 
“Tt is human altogether. Its dignity and 
its veracity have won it the highest praise of 
the severest critics. Its humanity makes it 
what Horace Greeley called ‘mighty interest- 
ing reading.’ ” 2 
Her latest novel, ‘‘Butterfly” tells how a 
girl solved the age old question of Marriage 
versus Career in a way. that no one but Kath- 
leen Norris can tell it. At present just a few 
weeks after its publication, it bids fair to be- 
come the most popular of all her stories. 


WORKS OF KATHLEEN NORRIS 


THE BELOVED WOMAN 
CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE 
HARRIET AND THE PIPER 
THE HEART OF RACHEL 
JOSSELYN’S WIFE 

LUCRETIA LOMBARD 
MARTIE THE UNCONQUERED 
MOTHER 

SATURDAY’S CHILD 

SISTERS 

THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE 
BUTTERFLY 


